CHENNAI: Former Union Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran, and his brother who is head of the Sun Group, Kalanidhi Maran, the key accused in the `1.78 crore illegal residence-based telephone exchange case, were absent when the case came up for hearing in a CBI special court on Monday.
The brothers face the charge of colluding with senior staff of State-run BSNL when Dayanidhi was the Union Telecommunications Minister to install an illegal virtual telephone exchange at his official residence for commercial operations of the Sun TV.
The CBI had registered a case of criminal conspiracy, cheating and Prevention of Corruption Act after The New Indian Express reported in June 2011 how Dayanidhi allegedly misused his official position to install at his residence 360 ISDN lines that could carry huge volume of data used for Sun TV’s commercial purposes free of cost.
Other than Maran brothers, the agency had also named KB Brahmanandam and MP Velusamy, both former Chief General Managers of Chennai Telephones, BSNL; 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. While the brothers stayed away, Velusamy, Gowthaman, Kannan and Ravi were present. The matter stands adjourned till June 6.
The CBI had filed the chargesheet on December 9 for allegedly using high-speed data lines at Dayanidhi’s residence, which caused a loss of Rs 1.78 crores to the exchequer. The high-end telecommunication facilities were illegally kept under the service category, for which no bills were raised for three years from 2004 when he became the minister in the United Progressive Alliance-1 (UPA-1) Government.