Marans to stand trial from Sept 14

R Vasanthi, the XIV additional special judge for CBI cases will preside over the trial of the Maran Brothers (Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi) and five others in the BSNL  “illegal” Telephone Exchange case from September 14.

The judge framed charges against Dayanidhi Maran (former Union Minister for Information Technology &Telecommunications) , his elder brother Kalanidhi Maran (proprietor, Sun TV Network), K Brahmanathan, M P Velusamy ( former General Manager and Deputy General Manager, BSNL), Dayanidhi Maran’s private secretary Gauthaman and two employees of Sun TV Network on Thursday.

Charges have been framed under Section 120-B of the IPC (Criminal Conspiracy), Criminal Breach of Trust (section 409), Cheating (section 420) and criminal misconduct by public servants (Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act).

According to the CBI, Dayanidhi Maran, during his tenure as Union Minister from 2004 to 2007 in the UPA Government led by Manmohan Singh, misused his office and installed a private telephone exchange at his residences in Chennai and used the network for the commercial telecasting business of the Sun Network, owned by his brother. The investigating agency had told the trial court that exchequer had lost Rs 1.78 crore because of the illegal telephone exchange.

The Special CBI court in Chennai had acquitted all the accused  in the month of March 2018 telling there were not enough materials to frame charges. The CBI approached the Madras High Court against the trial court order. Justice G Jayachandran  who heard the appeal by the CBI said : “error, illegality, and perversity all could be pointed out in the impugned trial court order”. Though the Marans rushed to the Supreme Court seeking  the quashing of the Madras High Court order, the apex court asked them to stand trial in the case.

S Gurumurthy, editor, Thuglaq, who brought out the startling disclosures about the “illegal telephone exchange”, said the Marans were using 764 illegal telephone lines for high speed data transfer to facilitate their private TV network business. “The cost of installation of Rs 1.73 crore mentioned in the charge sheet is peanuts as compared to the unaccounted user charges on the 764 stolen lines,” said Gurumurthy.

He said that the investigating agency would be able to assess the gains made by the Sun Network and the losses suffered by the exchequer because of the misuse of these 764 lines with the help of the National Gateway.