A CBI Special Court in Chennai on Wednesday discharged former Union Minister for Telecommunications and Information Technology Dayanidhi Maran, his elder brother Kalanidhi Maran and five others of all charges in the “illegal telephone exchange case”.
V Gowthaman , former personal secretary to Dayanidhi Maran, K Brahmanathan, former chief general manager of BSNl, M Velusamy, former deputy general manager, BSNl, S Kannan, vice president, Sun TV Network and K S Ravi, technician, Sun TV Network are the others who were discharged from the case aog with the Maran brothers.
“There is no prima facie material against you. Hence you are discharged from the case,” said, CBI special judge Natarajan.
The CBI case was that the exchequer had suffered a loss of Rs 1.78 crore because of the alleged private telephone exchange installed at the residence of Dayanidhi Maran during 2004 to 2007 when he was the Union Minister for Telecommunications.
According to the CBI, Dayanidhi Maran got a private telephone exchange installed in his residence in Boat Club Road in Chennai during the period when he was the union minister in the UPA-1 Government. This high-end telephone exchange which had more than 700 lines with ISDN facilities was used exclusively for business transactions involving the Sun TV Network. The exchange was installed under service category and bills were not raised for the same, alleged the CBI.
It was alleged that the telephone lines with high speed data exchange facilities were used to facilitate the telecasting of programmes by the Sun TV Network owned by Kalanidhi Maran, elder brother of Dayanidhi.
The details of the private exchange came out after the exit of Dayanidhi Maran from the Manmohan Singh Government in 2007 following the internal struggle in the family of the DMK chief M Karunandhi. The Maran brothers are the sons of Murasoli Maran, former Union Minister and nephew of Karunanidhi.
Though Dayanidhi was ousted from the Government in 2007, he came back in 2009 and was in charge of the textiles Ministry. But he had to quit mid-way because of the Aircel-Maxis scam which reportedly took place during his previous tenure as telecommunications Minister.
The discharge of the Maran brothers in this case has come as a major relief to the DMK. Earlier, a special court in New Delhi had acquitted Kanimozhi, daughter of Karunanidhi and former Telecome Minister A Raja in the 2G Spectrum Scam which had rocked the country.