Former Telecom Minister Arun Shourie on Sunday rubbished Dayandhi Maran’s statements in Supreme Court that he only used service telephone lines like other Telecom Ministers. Reacting to Maran’s statements, Shourie said the CBI’s case was for illegally installing telephone exchange and using it for the family-run TV channel business
and not for using service lines for the official duties as Telecom Minister.
“The assertion made on behalf of Dayanidhi Maran regarding “service category connections” is nothing but an attempt to mislead the court. The issue in Maran’s case is NOT whether he got a telephone connection under one category or another, but whether he had BSNl or some other governmental agency set up 700-odd illegal high definition connections, and whether these were used for commercial purposes. Is it his case that his predecessors-in particular, me-set up similar illegal connectionsIJ” Shourie told The Pioneer.
last week, in a statement in the supreme court Maran named his predecessors — nine Telecom Ministers — claimed he only used service connection telecom lines like others. Shourie said this was “just a false” statement and he was trying to divert attention from the CBI’s findings on the illegal usage of 740 high definition telecom lines for the Sun TV, linked through his home in Chennai.
“Though I never moved into a governmental house, the fact is that Ministers are given houses to stay in during their tenure as Ministers. Availing of the house is not illegal. But what of a Minister who takes the house and then rents it outIJ Ministers travel on tickets bought by Government. What of a Minister who were to take this ticket, and, instead of using it for official travel, sold it to someone else, and pocketed the moneyIJ Ministers are given an official car to be used for their official work. No issue would arise as long as the car is used by him for his official work. But most certainly he would be guilty of a crime if he were to allow it to be used as a taxi.
“THAT is the charge that Maran has to meet. All he has to do is to establish that he did NOT have those 700-odd illegal connections and that these were not made available to Sun TV, owned and run by his brother. That is all he has to do, but that he HAS to do,” said Shourie.