The First Information Report filed by the CBI against Dayanidhi Maran, former Union Minister for Communications, for setting up a private telephone exchange with 323 ISDN lines in his Chennai residence in 2006, has cast a big shadow over the Sun Network, the media empire owned by the Maran family, grand nephews of the DMK chief M Karunanidhi.
“The private telephone exchange with 323 ISDN lines was used exclusively for the growth of the Sun Network which include satellite television channels in all south Indian languages. The name of Kalanidhi Maran, the elder brother of Dayanidhi too should be included in the FIR,” CK Mathivanan, the former BSNl sub divisional engineer who was the whistleblower in exposing the Rs 440 crore telephone exchange scam, told The Pioneer.
Mathivanan pointed out that the Sun Network has satellite TV channels in all south Indian languages spread across the States of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, AP and Kerala.
“Dayanidhi Maran became the Union Communications Minister in the UPA Government in 2004. The private telephone exchange with the 323 ISDN lines installed at his house in Chennai’s Boat Club Road was connected to Anna Arivalayam, the DMK head quarters through underground cables. The DMK headquarters was the nerve centre as well as the corporate office of the Sun Network. A feud in the DMK’s first family resulted in Dayanidhi being ousted from the union cabinet in 2007 at the instance of Karunanidhi. A Raja, who replaced him, had ordered a CBI inquiry into the private exchange case but by the time the report was ready, the Maran brothers had patched up with the Karunanuidhi family. This resulted in the preliminary report prepared by the CBI ending up in dustbin,” said Mathivanan.
KP Sunil, former chief of Jaya TV had told this reporter that how the application filed by Jaya TV to launch a 24 hour news channel was kept pending by Dayanidhi during his tenure as Telecom Minister. Many other Tamil channels were denied licences by Dayanidhi to further the interests of his family enterprises. Kalaignar, the TV channel owned by Karunanidhi was launched in 2007 to subjugate the Maran brothers following the dispute in the family.
According to Mathivanan, the growth of the Sun Network, which was first launched in 1990 as Poomalai, a video magazine, as south India’s largest media conglomerate owning 40 TV channels, 25 FM radio stations and a number of Tamil newspapers and magazines was mind boggling. The Sun Network is worth $4 billion.
In addition to the TV and radio network, the Marans own Spicejet, a private airliner.Mathivanan also demanded a thorough probe into the functioning of other regional language TV channels owned by the Sun Group. “Though they do not have much viewership for their channels in Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada, the channels always claim they are the industry leaders. This is an area which needs probe,” said a media executive based in Chennai. The Sun Network is also into film production and distribution and had kept the Tamil film industry under a tight leash during the previous DMK administration headed by Karunanidhi. Chief minister Jayalalirthaa herself made a statement during the inauguration of the centenary celebrations of Indian cinema recently that the Tamil film industry has been liberated by her from the shackles of a “family” following her victory in the 2011 assembly election.
It was Mathivanan who sounded Swadeshi Jagran Manch’s S Gurumurthy about the functioning of the private telephone exchange in Dayanidhi Maran’s residence. Gurumurthy wrote a comprehensive article in The New Indian Express in 2011 for which the Maran brothers retaliated with a legal notice. But till date they have not approached any court of law challenging Gurumurthy. As a marm of vindictiveness, authorities have put on block the pension benefits of Mathivanan who retired from BSNl after 41 years of service in 2013 June. He is yet to get his montyhly pension for the “crime”.