Alleging that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is trying to fix him in a false “telephone exchange” case and torturing his aides, former Union telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran on Thursday said if the agency continues to do so, he has no choice but to fight it out.
“The CBI’s act is also politically motivated. It should be a fact finding machine. (But) it wants to pass the buck. Therefore, I have no choice but to fight it out legally,” he said.
Maran’s outburst came against the backdrop of the arrest of three persons, including his former additional private secretary V Gowthaman, by the CBI.
Maintaining that he has not committed anything wrong and would face the case legally, Maran said for the last 18 months, the arrested people have been called by the CBI and they cooperated in all the investigation procedures.
“After their arrest, the CBI tortured them by compelling them to lodge a complaint against me. They also met third degree treatment from CBI,” he alleged.
A special CBI team from New Delhi arrived in Chennai on Wednesday night and arrested V Gowthaman, former Additional Private Secretary to Mr Dayanidhi Maran, Chief Technical Officer of Sun TV S Kannan, and K S Ravi, working as electrician in Sun TV.
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.
“I have only one telephone connection at my residence and it is still working,” Maran claimed and added that there was no telephone exchange that was installed at his residence and all that he had was an ISDN line like other central ministers have at their residence.
Stating that the CBI was motivated to arrest him by trying to convert a civil case into a criminal case, he said “the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was behind this act”.
He said the issue should be considered as a civil case and not a criminal one and the CBI should have approached him to get the issue sorted out.
Maran is also facing another telecom case — Aircel-Maxis case — filed by the CBI.The charge against Maran in the Aircel-Maxis case is that he pressurised then Aircel promoter C Sivasankaran to sell his stakes to Malaysian group Maxis in 2006.