The CBI on Wednesday questioned former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran for nearly eight hours in connection with a case of alleged illegal installation of over 300 high-capacity BSNl lines at his Chennai residence to facilitate speedy transmission of programmes by a TV firm owned by his elder brother, an action termed by the Union Home Ministry as a threat to national security.
The agency’s Special Task Force grilled Maran, 48, at the CBI headquarters from 11 am onwards till 6.30 pm and asked him to appear for questioning again on Thursday, CBI sources said. Maran refused to take questions from waiting reporters and left. He had been called on Monday but did not turn up and approached the Madras High Court for interim anticipatory bail, which was granted to him on Tuesday.
He was earlier questioned by the agency in January and October last year. Owner of Sun TV and Dayanidhi’s brother Kalanithi Maran was questioned in the case in September, 2014. According to CBI estimates, the total loss incurred by the PSU was to the tune of Rs1.80 crore through illegal installation of 770 telephone lines and mobile phone connections, agency sources said.
In its FIR, the CBI has alleged that 323 lines were installed in the name of BSNl General Manager connecting the Boat House residence of Maran with the office of the family-run Sun TV through a dedicated underground cable during his tenure as the Telecom Minister.
CBI sources said these were not ordinary telephone lines but costly ISDN, capable of carrying huge data, to facilitate faster transmission of TV news and programmes across the globe. The preliminary enquiry had started in 2011, nearly four years after getting complaints that a ‘virtual’ telephone exchange was allegedly set up at Maran’s residence.
The CBI registered a regular case on July 23, 2013, and arrested former Additional Private Secretary to Maran, V Gowthaman, Chief Technical officer S Kannan and electrician lS Ravi in January this year. All these accused are now enlarged on bail.
The CBI had in a report to the Telecom Secretary earlier alleged these lines were for use by large commercial enterprises to meet special needs such as video conferencing or transmission of huge volume of digital data for which heavy fee is charged but Sun TV got it for free. The illegal telephone exchange has been cited by the Home Ministry as one of the reasons for denying security clearance to the Sun TV network. The Ministry has said it posed a serious threat to national security.
Sun TV had approached the Home Ministry for security clearance but the latter declined the permission saying the owners of the TV network were facing various cases for offences including money laundering.