JOIN USIn a breather to former Union telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran, the Madras High Court on Tuesday granted him anticipatory bail in an illegal telephone exchange case.
When the bail petition came for hearing, Justice R Subbiah directed Maran to appear before the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) at its headquarters. The CBI has summoned him to appear before it in Delhi on Wednesday.
Maran is alleged to have installed over 300 telephone lines at his residence during his tenure as Union telecom minister and connected them to his brother Kalanidhi Maran owned Sun TV office for video up-linking.
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 the case against the former Union Telecom Minister.
The probe started in 2011, nearly four years after getting complaints that a 'virtual' telephone exchange was allegedly set-up at the then Telecom Minister's house for facilitating data transfer from Sun TV. The expensive ISDN lines were capable of carrying large amount of data, therefore facilitating Sun TV to transmit news and programmes across the globe.