Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami has announced that he is going to declare his personal financial details and hand it over to the CBI, the ED and, "should the Mumbai Police be interested, to them as well".
Taking on his detractors for spreading canards against him and accusing him of "paying thousands of dollars to manipulate TRP", Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami has announced that he is going to declare his personal financial details and hand it over to the agencies.
In his opening statement on his primetime show 'The Debate', Arnab Goswami said: "Enough vilification and lies. I am declaring every rupee I have earned and spent. Let my detractors follow my example and do the same."
Arnab Goswami said that he and his wife and Republic Media Network Senior Executive Editor Samyabrata Ray Goswami are going to "publicly declare all their income, salaries, expenditures, loans, insurance policies, educational expenses, medical expenses, and their entire bank accounts since 2004, when they moved to Mumbai".
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The remarks come after media reports cited the Mumbai Police's 3600-page supplementary charge sheet in the TRP scam case to claim that Partho Dasgupta, the former CEO of Broadcast Audience Research Council, had acknowledged receiving $12,000 from Arnab Goswami for two separate holidays and a total of Rs 40 lakh over three years, in return for manipulating ratings.
Countering the charge, the Republic Editor-in-Chief said that the alleged statement had been extracted under duress in police custody from Partho Dasgupta.
He also cited the public statements made by Partho Dasgupta's family that he was physically tortured to falsely implicate Arnab Goswami and that he was assaulted in custody and allegedly warned of consequences if he did not name Arnab Goswami.
In a statement, the channel said, "They (Arnab & Samyabrata) will be putting all their personal financial details in a document and publicly handing it over to the CBI, the ED and, should the Mumbai Police be interested, to them as well."
"Along with this, they will be disclosing all details of their taxes paid, mortgage payments on their home, and all EMI details to the agencies as well. This is the first time that a media professional and a public personality is disclosing every single rupee of their financial transactions -- that too of the last 16 years."
Stating that he was setting a precedent, Arnab Goswami dared owners and editors of other media networks who have cast aspersions on him to do the same this week.