The Supreme Court on Monday directed former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran and his brother to approach the special 2G court on the question whether the Aircel-Maxis case, in which they were summoned as accused, is part of the 2G spectrum cases.
Having allowed the Maran brothers — Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi — to approach an appropriate forum last week on this issue, the Bench of Justices V Gopala Gowda and R Banumathi recalled its order and added a clarification to it stating that the Marans cannot be permitted to file a petition in the High Court.
This became necessary as CBI special counsel KK Venugopal informed the Court that the order gave rise to an apprehension allowing the accused to approach the High Court on the issue. Venugopal said that this cannot be allowed as successive orders by the apex court while monitoring the 2G spectrum cases had barred any court except Supreme Court to deal with matters arising from the 2G case.
Marans hotly contested CBI's claim suggesting that the CBI case in the Aircel-Maxis case pertained to a Malaysian tycoon Ananthakrishnan who obtained spectrum after he acquired Aircel from one Sivasankaran. CBI alleged that Sivasankaran was arm-twisted to sell his stake in Aircel to Maxis owner Ananthakrishnan. As quid pro quo a kickback of Rs 800 crore was received into Sun TV limited, owned by Dayanidhi's brother Kalanidhi, according to CBI.
Maran's counsels l Nageshwar Rao and C A Sundaram argued that 2G cases covered grant of 122 licences for the 2G spectrum that were cancelled by SC. In the Aircel-Maxis case, according to them, no license was granted and hence was different from the remaining lot of 2G cases.
On the other hand, Venugopal added that Bharati Cellular ltd CMD Sunil Mittal, whose company was allocated additional spectrum during the tenure of late telecom minister Pramod Mahajan, had also approached the apex court against the summons issued by trial court. He pointed out that as part of the 2G case investigation, the CBI is currently looking into all allocations made since 2001 during the reign of former Telecom Ministers Pramod Mahajan, Arun Shourie, Dayanidhi Maran and A Raja. Maran was telecom minister from 2004-07 before A Raja took over.