Bail cancelled, Maran ordered to surrender in three days

In a major setback to former Union IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran, the Madras High Court on Monday cancelled the anticipatory bail granted to him in the multi-crore illegal telephone exchange case and ordered him to surrender before the CBI in three days. 

When the petition filed by the CBI asking to cancel the anticipatory bail given to Maran came up for hearing, Justice S Vaidyanathan accepted the investigation agency’s contention that the former Union minister did not cooperate with the investigation and cancelled the bail.

The Judge said the order copies cancelling the bail would be given to the CBI on Monday, while grating him three days time to surrender.

The CBI had recently 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 investigating agency also charged that Maran, despite sustained interrogation during his presence before the probing team, intentionally did not produce any relevant information, which was in his exclusive knowledge.

Following Maran’s petition, the court had, on June 30, granted six weeks’ anticipatory bail to him after the CBI summoned him to New Delhi for questioning in 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.

Maran has been charged with installing 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 this year.