CBI likely to grill Maran

The agency will seek clarifications from the minister about the allegations made against him by C Sivas­ankaran, former Aircel chief and chairman of Sterling Group.

Sivasankaran had alleged that he was forced to sell his stake in Aircel to Maxis after his applications for telecom licences were not approved by the Department of Telecom (DoT) deliberately. 

The investigating agency is presently verifying the charges made by Sivasankaran in his statement recorded under section 161 of the CrPC on June 6. Sivasankaran had learnt to have explained the CBI on sequence of events about why he was sold his stake to Maxis, a Malaysian firm owned by a Sri Lankan expatriate T Ananda Krishnan in December, 2005.

It was alleged that Maran, who was the telecom minister in UPA-I regime, did not allot the spectrum to Aircel until  Shivashankar sold his stake to Maxis. However, Maran denied the charges, claiming that Aircel received the spectrum after it was fulfilled the required criteria.