JOIN USThe Madras High Court on Monday issued notices to former Union IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran, asking him to reply by August first week to a petition filed by the CBI seeking to cancel the anticipatory bail granted to him in the multi-crore illegal BSNL telephone exchange case.
When the CBI’s petition, filed on July 17, came up for hearing, Justice R Subbaiah adjourned it to August 4 and directed Maran to file his reply on that day.
Recently, the CBI moved the high court seeking cancellation of the anticipatory bail granted to Maran alleging that he did not cooperate during the interrogation.
The petition accused Maran of being evasive and giving contradictory replies, besides intentionally covering the facts to save himself and others in the case.
The investigation agency also charged that Maran, despite of sustained interrogation during his presence before the probing team, intentionally did not produce any relevant information, which are in his exclusive knowledge.
Following Maran’s petition, the court on June 30 granted six weeks anticipatory bail to him after the CBI summoned him to New Delhi for questioning in connection with the case.
The court also said the CBI could file a petition seeking to cancel the bail if Maran did not cooperate with the investigation.
The allegation against Maran is that he had got installed over 300 telephone lines at his residence while he was the Union Telecom Minister and connecting them to his brother Kalanidhi Maran owned Sun TV office for uplinking videos.
The CBI has named Maran and senior BSNL officials, including the then Chief General Manager K Bramhanathan and M P Veluswami, in the FIR filed in October 2013 following a preliminary inquiry in which the agency claimed to have found enough evidence to proceed with a regular case against the former Union Telecom Minister.
Subsequently, a special CBI team from New Delhi had arrested Gowthaman, Chief Technical Officer S Kannan and electrician K S Ravi of Sun TV network recently in connection with the case on January 21.