B-1/23A, 1ST FLOOR, TANMAYA MEHTA HAUZ KHAS, ADVOCATE NEW DELHI – 110016 [email protected]

28 January 2021 1. Spunklane Media Private Ltd. No.6, SBI Road (Madras Bank Road), – 560 001 [email protected]

2. Dhanya Rajendran, Editor‐In‐Chief [email protected]

3. Sanyukta Dharmadhikari [email protected]

BY EMAIL AND SPEED POST Dear Sir/Ma'am

Re: Notice to cease and desist from reporting fake, unsubstantiated, false and unverified news against Republic TV in respect of the alleged TRP scam being investigated by the Police and which is also sub judice; remove the false news report from all mediums; and to publish an unconditional apology to Republic TV for reporting such false and fake stories and issue a corrigendum clarifying the correct facts, in all digital media, and other platforms.

1. We represent Mr. and ARG Outlier Media Private Limited ("our clients"). Please note our interest in the matter and ensure that any future communications regarding it are addressed the undersigned as well.

2. Our clients' new channels, Republic TV and R. Bharat are names to reckon with among news channels in and abroad and are the most viewed news channels in the English and genre respectively. Our client, Mr. Goswami is the Editor‐in‐chief of the Republic Media Network. Led by Mr. Goswami, Republic Media Network presently operates two channels namely Republic TV in English and Republic Bharat in Hindi, and a digital platform ‐ Republic World. He is also the Managing Director of ARG Outlier Media Private Limited. The news network which was founded by Mr. Goswami, beams to over 250 million viewers across the country, in English and Hindi. The network also has viewers across the globe including in the UK, the Middle East, the North Africa Region, Canada, Singapore and Australia.

3. Mr. Goswami is among one of the most prestigious names in the news industry and has over 20 years of experience. Prior to launching Republic TV in May 2017, he launched Bennett, Coleman and Company Limited’s , a 24x7 English news channel, in 2006. Within a year of launching Times Now, Mr. Goswami led his news team to the number 1 viewership position in the English news genre. He is an award‐

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winning news anchor who has also won the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism (TV) in 2008. Mr. Goswami has an impeccable reputation and has been on the Board of Directors of Asianet Media Pvt Ltd.

4. Mr. Goswami commands immense respect and goodwill in the media fraternity, and is the current President of the governing board of the News Broadcasters Federation (NBF), which is India’s largest association of over 78 news channels from every region of the country.

5. Mr. Goswami has been at the forefront of crucial public campaigns, including the 2G Scam, the Coalgate Scam, the Anna Movement, the Commonwealth Games Scam, the Muzaffarpur Shelter Home Case, the Lalitgate Scandal and the Kargil for Profit scam, amongst others.

6. Mr. Goswami has an impeccable record as a with more and has launched and editorially led English news channel TIMES NOW in the year 2006. Under his leadership, then India’s Number 1 English news channel had been the most watched channel in the genre for more than 10 years uninterrupted. In 2017, Mr. Goswami launched Republic Media Network with the launch of English news channel Republic TV in May 2017‐‐ which has been the most watched channel in the genre since its week of launch. In the year 2019, Mr. Goswami launched the Hindi news channel of the Network, Republic Bharat, which toppled legacy players in the ratings in the genre to become the most watched Hindi news channel in 2020. Mr. Goswami has built his organisation with professionalism and is known for his reputed journalistic endeavours which are synonymous with a high degree of credibility across the country and the world.

7. Mr. Goswami is highly respected not just in the field of journalism but also academia. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the International Studies Department at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University. He has also written a book titled “Combating Terrorism: The Legal Challenge”. Mr. Goswami got his Masters in Social Anthropology from St Antony’s College, Oxford University in 1994. He received the Felix Scholarship for having been an outstanding student from India to pursue graduate studies in any subject at the .

8. The present notice is being issued in the facts and circumstances below:

Background

9. We are constrained to issue this letter in view of your false news report mischievous content in a news report titled, “Explainer: BARC audit report shows employees colluded to change channel ratings” published and reported on 26 January 2021 at https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/explainer‐barc‐audit‐report‐shows‐

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employees‐colluded‐change‐channel‐ratings‐142192 and other social media platforms.

10. The news report is part of a mala fide, vicious, vexatious and deliberate campaign inter alia by you to tarnish the reputation of our client. You have wrongly tried to link our clients with the former BARC CEO Mr. Partho Dasgupta, and drawn conclusions with respect to him using highly tangentially, through irrational and motivated means. Despite the fact that the BARC report of July 2020 does not have any specific exchanges with our client which can be used to conclude a link about alleged TRP manipulation, overtly false claims bereft of fact and effect have been made by you. In fact, the summary conclusions in the Forensic Report of July 2020 and cited in the said “news” report, which you acknowledge you have a copy of, are made in the context of overall BARC management/Partho Dasgupta; and the part about the English news genre cannot be read as making reference to any specific exchange involving our client, with respect to alleged TRP manipulation as is falsely suggested by you. Further, despite the pendency of the matter before a court of law, which is well known to you, the above news report has attributed guilt to our clients in relation to the alleged TRP scam. Certain extracts of the said news report are as under:

Naming Partho Dasgupta and citing his exchanges with Republic TV Editor‐in‐ Chief Arnab Goswami, the audit report states, “We can conclude that Mr Partho Dasgupta was aware of the manipulation of the ratings and violation of the processes that was happening in BARC during his stint as CEO. We can also infer that he may be directly involved in these mala‐fide actions.”

“Even though Mr Partho Dasgupta is expected to be the custodian of governance and ethics as he was the CEO, we can deduce that he overlooked this factor. We have reasonable evidence to conclude that Mr. Partho Dasgupta aided the breakdown of governance and ethics in BARC, which had resulted in brand erosion in the market,” the report adds.

11. The article makes several false, fabricated and misleading claims and falsely presents a distorted picture meant to colour the minds of the public and prejudice my client. The false insinuations made, directly or through innuendo, include but are not limited to the following:

(a) that the BARC report concluded on collusion between Mr. Arnab Goswami and Mr. Partho Das Gupta and quid pro quo between them.

There was absolutely nothing to this effect in the said report. By making the suggestion that (reproducing from your “news” report) “citing his exchanges with Republic TV Editor‐in‐Chief Arnab Goswami, the audit report states, ‘We can conclude that Mr Partho Dasgupta was aware of the manipulation of the ratings’” which is completely fictitious. You have made your intent of a concocted narrative that does not exist in fact with a deliberate and conscious

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attempt to defame our client, attack his reputation and impact the commercial operations of the Republic Media Network. The aim and underlying effect of the article is to give the reader/audience a false and fabricated impression that our client was involved in alleged TRP manipulation when the fact of the matter is no material to the effect that our Client was manipulating ratings for Republic TV can be read as being part of the forensic report being quoted in your “news” article.

(b) that the BARC report considered the exchanges between Mr. Arnab Goswami and Mr. Partho Das Gupta and drew conclusions of wrongdoing thereof.

This too is a mistruth perpetuated to mislead the public at large, given that in the BARC Forensic report of July 2020 no such reference, which you are concluding in your act of intentional malice cloaked as a journalistic comment that is patently false, was made.

(c) You have deliberately misled the public into believing, as per your report, that the comments of the Forensic Report on the conduct of Mr Dasgupta have anything to do with Mr. Arnab Goswami.

In fact, the comments in the said Forensic Report are a drawn out of a collective analysis of 25 different annexures which include conduct with respect to certain Entertainment Channels and have nothing to do with Mr. Arnab Goswami indulging in any alleged wrongdoing whatsoever to benefit Republic TV.

In fact, the SMS / message exchanges in the annexed documents reveal the alleged collusion between others to allegedly “prefix” the ratings of others news channels. You have yourself put those chats / exchanges in your “news” report about the prefixing or manipulation of ratings of such other channels, but in an act of vexatious mischief concocted the about such exchanges with Mr. Goswami which do not even exist in the forensic report. In so doing, you have tried to make your audience falsely believe that the Forensic Report alluded to any such exchanges with Mr. Goswami after the launch of Republic TV ‐ which is a patently false statement about our Client.

12. You have deliberately tried to mislead and have defamed our Clients through the said publication. It appears that as part of a motivated plot, despite being cognizant of the full facts, you have chosen to cloak the reality using propaganda pieces aimed at harming the goodwill, the reputation, and the truth with respect to Republic Media Network. In light of the oblique and tainted “news” story published by www.thenewsminute.com irresponsibly and recklessly, without any degree of factual investigation and ignoring all journalistic ethics and principles, the correct facts are being put out below:

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a. SIGNIFICANT PORTIONS OF THE FORENSIC REPORT PREDATE THE EXISTENCE OF REPUBLIC TV & REPUBLIC MEDIA NETWORK: The Forensic Report of July 2020 that speaks of alleged TRP manipulation, chiefly does so for a period in 2016 wherein Republic Media Network did not exist, Republic TV wasn’t even launched and includes periods where Arnab Goswami was part of Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. It is thus clear that the referenced forensic report makes revelations/ draws conclusions that are not connected to Republic TV, and any attempt to use the said report to mislead about manipulation by Republic TV and Arnab Goswami is rooted in lies, falsehoods and a malicious intent to misinform. Therefore, it is bizarre that you have tried to claim the ratings of Republic TV were manipulated using the said forensic report when the report deals with a time period when Republic TV had not even been launched. This act by you reeks of malice. There cannot be a more blatant example of reckless reportage wherein you hold an individual and organisation responsible for the conduct of BARC even before the organisation has come into existence.

b. Moreover, the Forensic report has been factually and incorrectly reported by you as the “Audit Report”. This is also a deliberate act of mischief by you because the Forensic Report quoted by you is of July 2020 and the Audit Report in the alleged TRP Case is of December 2020. It is shocking that you have deliberately tried to supplant one report with another in a vexatious attempt to mislead your audience. Further, you have not clarified an important fact that is in your knowledge‐‐ that even the audit report of December 2020 has been commissioned and curated on the instructions of the Mumbai Police and is solely based on information provided by the Mumbai Police and hence has no evidentiary value. This kind of flagrant falsification in your report cannot be an accident and cannot be disregarded by any news organisation. You have, therefore, knowingly even misrepresented the name of the report which shows the degree of malice against our client.

c. In fact, an attempt is being deliberately and falsely made to draw a link between Mr Arnab Goswami and Partho Dasgupta via the leaks of the purported Whatsapp chats. The said leaks of the purported Whatsapp chats (the veracity and genuineness of which aren’t admitted and are still to be tested by due process) came into the public domain in January 2021 and the Forensic Report is from July 2020, which is 6 months earlier. It is therefore obvious that the BARC Forensic Report of July 2020 could not have and

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indeed did not, refer to the purported Whatsapp chats. Despite this, you have tried to draw a direct link between the purported chats and the Forensic report, which is predated by a period of 6 months. In any chronological cycle that you may create to further mislead your viewers, you cannot explain this factual inconsistency and this alarming degree of concoction by you.

d. The specific SMS/mobile message exchange cited in the story is regarding the prefixing or manipulations of ratings by other channels, which is clearly mentioned as a finding in the forensic report. Please note that the Forensic Report specifically suggests that officials of other channels were allegedly “prepped” in advance about being at a particular spot for a specific week which indicates culpability of others and not our client. We are therefore shocked that you refer to an “exchange” with Mr. Goswami when the “chat” extracted in your article pertained to allegedly benefitting someone else.

e. As far as the English news genre is concerned, you have deliberately concealed Annexure 18 and Annexure RR 38 which clearly mentions that the raw data of both Republic and Times Now as brought down in consonance with the Outlier Policy of BARC. The Outlier Policy is an algorithmic system and it is common knowledge that it identifies Landing Pages used by broadcast channels. TIMES NOW was heavily using Landing Pages. The Outlier Policy has existed in BARC since its launch in 2015, as is also documented in the Forensic Report that you claim to have in your possession. Therefore, by concealing the fact that the Annexures in the Forensic Report document the application of the Outlier Policy in the context of TIMES NOW, you have knowingly and deliberately conspired to conceal the true facts which are in your possession that an algorithmic and computerised policy brought down the ratings of TIMES NOW. Instead, by alleging that the Forensic Report draws a direct link between a non‐existent “exchange” between Mr Goswami and the BARC officials with regard to Republic TV’s ratings, you have gone to an unimaginable extent of falsification of fact aimed at deliberately damaging the reputation of our Clients and the commercial operations of Republic Media Network. f. In fact, the only appended communication involving Mr Arnab Goswami and Mr Partho Dasgupta predate the existence of Republic TV‐‐ thereby your deliberate, mischievous and malicious insinuation reveals your mal‐intent, mala fide purpose and deliberate act of criminal defamation against Mr Arnab Goswami, on your behalf or on behalf of forces controlling you or having influence over you commercially.

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13. The “news” report is a vile, hateful, and malicious attempt by you and part of a severely prejudicial campaign engineered and implemented by you against our clients and aimed at attempting to irreparably destroy their reputation as well as the reputation of the Republic Media network. Through your defamatory “news” report, you have spun a deeply false narrative of prejudice against our clients in complete breach of facts, ethics, morality, integrity and journalistic duties. The malicious intent is to further your own corporate/commercial interests by defaming our clients.

14. You have acted in breach of all journalistic ethics and against the well‐settled law and have impermissibly suggested and even concluded about the guilt of our client. By concealing material facts, pronouncing and/or imputing that our clients are guilty of TRP manipulation, even though the matter is pending investigation and is also sub judice, your assertions amount to criminal contempt of court and, it appears, that these are intended to further your own commercial and corporate interests through sensationalism at the cost of our clients' reputation. Your actions are aimed to discredit a senior journalist, run‐down a legitimate and established media house and ensure unfair and undue personal gains in the process.

From the abovementioned facts readily available in the public domain, it becomes apparent that the “news” perpetuated by you about our Client is not just defamatory but bereft of facts, scurrilous and fails to meet any criteria of due diligence by an apparent news media organization. Your allegations against our Client are based on selective, malicious, and is a motivated falsehood, despite the true and holistic facts being available in the public domain. The sole intent of your “news” report’s falsified claims against our Client is to prejudice the mind of the public in an ongoing case in which no evidence of wrongdoing or criminality has been established by against our clients.

It is clear you have been reporting misleading news and making false allegations in a manner that is malicious and vindictive, despite the clarifications by our clients in the public domain. As a media organization, you had access to said facts and disclosures made by all persons in the report, but seem to have consciously and wantonly overlooked them to further an agenda directed by malice and framed by vindictiveness.

By concealing and distorting critical facts, you have destroyed the credibility of your “news” story and your headline.

Therefore, in light of the above, we call upon you to immediately:

● Immediately clarify how you came to the conclusion that the comments about Mr. Dasgupta were in the specific and exclusive domain in the context of his alleged “exchanges” with Mr. Goswami.

● Cease and desist from reporting such misleading, fake, unsubstantiated, false and unverified news in the print and digital media, and other social media platforms and

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to remove the existing false news report published by you as mentioned above from all mediums.

● Publish an unconditional apology across your digital assets for reporting such misleading and motivated stories. This unconditional apology must be published conspicuously on yur across your digital publications and official social media handles with equal if not more prominence.

● Publish the full statement by the Republic Media Network that was issued on 24 January 2021, and also the factual narration in this notice, in response to the campaign of calumny. Such publication must be conspicuous on your print and across your digital publications and official handles with equal if not more prominence.

● Issue a corrigendum clarifying the correct facts on all your platforms (print and digital including official social media platforms) within 24 hours of receipt of this notice, in equal if not more prominence than the original defamatory content;

● Cease and desist from publishing and issuing any further defamatory content against our clients which have no corroboration in facts or evidence.

● Cease and desist from commenting on the merits of the allegations or selectively “report” on what has been colloquially come to be known as the alleged TRP Scam.

● Cease and desist from selective publication, directly or through innuendo, in the matter, since the case is already pending investigation and is also sub judice.

Although the immense damage caused to our clients' reputation cannot be sufficiently made good in terms of money, our clients reserve their right to seek damages from you, jointly and severally, in addition to adopting any other legal remedies. Please respond to this communication and the steps initiated towards compliances with the above demands within 24 hours of this notice, failing which our clients will be compelled to take all legal steps, in civil law and/or criminal law, against you and your editorial and any other staff involved in generating the defamatory content against our clients.

The present notice is limited to the issues herein and the contents hereof are illustrative rather than exhaustive of any points available to our clients in relation to the above matter, either at law or in equity. All of our clients' rights are expressly reserved in this regard.

Sincerely,

(Tanmaya Mehta) [D‐982/2008]

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