Mumbai: BARC, former CEO of TV ratings agency Partho Dasgupta arrested on Thursday in connection with TRP Scam case. The Mumbai police arrested 15 persons in the case so far, Dasgupta was the 15^th person was taken into custody from Raigad and will be produced in Court on Friday.

Last week the police also arrested the former COO of the agency – Romil Ramgarhia – from his residence in Mumbai’s Antop Hill neighbourhood. Ramgarhia allegedly “provided secret and confidential information to certain TV channels to help increase TRP”. According to the senior police officer, the authorities had also recovered Whatsapp chats between Ramgarhia and the Director and CEO of ARG Outlier Media Private Limited. ARG Outlier Media Pvt Ltd owns the Republic Media network, who’s CEO Vikas Khanchandani, was arrested earlier this month. Khanchandani was later granted bail. Republic’s Head of Distribution, Ghanshyam Singh, was arrested last month.

On investigation Mumbai Police said Republic TV – which claims the highest ratings – was tweaking ratings to get high advertising rates by bribing the households in which metres were installed. The police said they were being paid ₹ 400 to ₹ 500 per month to keep certain channels on. TRP measured by recording viewership data in sample households is crucial for attracting advertisers and improving revenues at TV channels.