After HC order to surrender, Maran likely to move SC

The possibility of former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran’s arrest in an illegal telephone exchange case increased on Monday with the Madras High court rejecting his anticipatory bail plea and asked him to surrender before the CBI within three days. Maran may move the Supreme Court against the High Court order, source said. The order, by Justice Vaidyanathan, was in response to the plea moved by the CBI requesting the High Court to cancel the anticipatory bail it had granted to Maran, grand nephew of DMK chief M Karunanidhi.

Maran is the prime accused in the illegal telephone exchange scandal. Maran had pleaded for making the interim bail a permanent one.The Madras High Court had granted the anticipatory bail to Maran on June 30 on the condition that he appears before the CBI on July 1 and cooperates in the investigation.

However, the CBI, which is investigating the functioning of an illegal BSNl telephone exchange with more than 700 lines from the Chennai residence of Dayanidhi Maran during his tenure as union Telecommunications Minister from 2004 to 2007, had told the Court that the former minister was not cooperating with the investigation agency and was deliberately suppressing information from it. 

The CBI wanted the High Court to cancel the anticipatory bail it had granted to Maran since the investigating agency felt that the case could be taken forward only by a “custodial interrogation” of Maran.G Rajagopal, the additional solicitor general, who represented the CBI, had told the court that Maran’s answers were “evasive and inconsistent”. 

The agency is of the view that the 700 lines private BSNl exchange was used by Maran for commercial use by his family owned Sun Network, south India’s largest satellite television network. “We have to find out who was the beneficiary of this 700-lines exchange,” Rajagopal had said. He also brought to the attention of the court that though the FIR was registered in the case in 2011, no chargesheet could be filed because of lack of material evidence. “The accused enjoyed political patronage in New Delhi till 2013 and hence the delay in collecting the details,” said the CBI in its arguments.  

As arguments remained inconclusive on the CBI plea, Justice Vaidhyanathan had on August 5 adjourned the matter for Monday.