CHENNAI: Half a decade after The New Indian Express exposed the existence of a clandestine telephone exchange in the house of former Union Telecom and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran in Chennai for illegal transmission of data for his family company Sun TV, the Central Bureau of Investigation filed a charge sheet against him, his elder brother and Sun group chairman Kalanidhi Maran, and senior telecom officials on Friday.
Other than the Maran brothers, the charge sheet also names KB Brahmanandam and MP Velusamy, both former Chief General Managers of Chennai Telephones, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited; V Gowthaman, then additional personal secretary to Dayanidhi Maran; S Kannan, the chief technical assistant of Sun TV; and KS Ravi, an electrician working with Sun TV.
The agency had registered a case of criminal conspiracy, cheating and Prevention of Corruption Act after Express reported in June 2011 how Dayanidhi misused his official position to install at his residence 360 ISDN lines that can carry high volume data, which was used for Sun TV’s commercial purposes free of cost. CBI investigation revealed that 764 telephone numbers were provided to Dayanidhi Maran by BSNL Chennai Telephones and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, New Delhi.
“No bills were allegedly raised for all these facilities and thereby caused loss worth to the tune of Rs 1.78 crore to both BSNL and MTNL,” said CBI. The probe into the illegal telephone exchange started in 2011, nearly four years after getting complaints that a ‘virtual’ telephone exchange was allegedly set-up to facilitate data transfer for Sun TV. The agency had recommended to the then telecom secretary in 2007 to take action, but the department allegedly did not give its nod in the case.
Finally, CBI had filed a preliminary inquiry in the case in 2011, and in its report to the telecom secretary it had alleged that these lines were meant for large commercial enterprises.
Finally, the CBI had filed a preliminary inquiry in the case in 2011. CBI in its report to the telecom secretary had alleged that these lines were for use for 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. A case was registered against the Marans and five others in July 2013.
It was alleged that from June 2004 to December 2006, approximately 364 telephone numbers or lines were installed at Maran’s Gopalapuram residence, and between December 2006 and September 2007, 353 lines were installed at 1st Avenue Boat Club Road, which was his new residence.
It was alleged that 10 post-paid mobile connections (approx) with vanity numbers in respect of nine numbers were given to a private Television channel as per the verbal orders of Dayanidhi Maran and that these connections were given under “service category” and no bill was raised.
No payment was allegedly made for installation as well as rentals for these telephone connections which included high-end facilities like ISDN, broadband, leased circuits with optical fibre connecting both the residences thereby, causing an alleged loss to the tune of `1.2 crore (approx) to the BSNL, which did not include the call charges.
The invetigation into the illegal telephone exchange started in 2011, nearly four years after getting complaints that a ‘virtual’ telephone exchange was set-up to facilitate data transfer for Sun TV owned by Marans.