Court cancels Dayanidhi Maran's bail
Dayanidhi Maran will now face arrest as the Madras high court cancelled his "six-week, interim and conditional anticipatory bail" which had been granted to him on June 30. However, former Union telecom minister Maran has been granted three days to surrender. The judge said "had caused a huge financial loss to the exchequer by misusing his official position" which became ground for bail cancellation.
In 2010, reports claimed the alottment of more than 300 telephone lines to DMK leader Dayanidhi Maran's residence in Chennai. The lines were illegally linked with his brother Kalanithi Maran's television channel. On 30 July 2013, CBI found the charges to be true. These lines were used for commercial purpose; Sun TV levied heavy fees for digital data services which it got for free.
CK Mathivanan, a Sub-Divisional Engineer of BSNL who was the whistleblower in the Rs.440 crore telephone exchange scandal, lost his pension benefits for exposing the minister.
Tightening its noose around Maran's neck the CBI called-on former Kalaignar TV managing director Sharad Kumar, for questioning. Kumar's summons came shortly after the questioning of another ex Sun executive, Hansraj Saxena. CBI planned to interrogate more of Sun's executives including the ones who served on its Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada channels in the following days.
On 21 January 2015, CBI arrested Dayanidhi Maran's close aide V Gowthaman, S Kannan and LS Ravi in the illegal telephone exchange case. The next day, Maran accused the agency of attempting "to fix" him on the orders of a RSS leader from Tamil Nadu. Maran said that those arrested were being forced to complain against him and give a "false statement".
The CBI court in Chennai rejected the bail pleas by those arrested and remanded to judicial custody with respect to the illegal telephone exchange case. The court had previously granted permission on 5 February 2015 to the CBI to question the accused in jail. The court said that the bail if given, may hamper the investigation due to the influence of their employer Maran.
Taking a dig at Maran, AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalitha said that the former telecom minister was running a 'private telephone exchange' from his house itself.
On 30 June 2015, the Madras high court furbished anticipatory bail to Dayanidhi Maran in the illegal telephone exchange case. The CBI sought the cancellation of bail. Justice R Subbiah granted the bail and directed Maran to appear before the CBI and to cooperate with them On 1 July, Maran was questioned by the Special Task Force at the CBI headquarters for 8 hours.
