CBI books Maran brothers in Aircel-Maxis deal, raids premises

Sleuths of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday morning raided the palatial residences of former Union minister Dayanidhi Maran and his elder brother Kalanidhi Maran at the posh Boat Club Road in Chennai. The opulent Murasoli Maran Centre, the corporate head office of Sun Network, the media empire owned by the Maran brothers, too was raided simultaneously.

The CBI team which flew into the city from New Delhi raided the Maran brothers in connection with a complaint filed by Sivasankaran, a Chennai-based entrepreneur who alleged that he was forced to part with his company  Aircel, at the instance of Dayanidhi Maran who was the Union communication minister from 2004 to 2007 in the first UPA government.

The CBI filed a First Information Report (FIR) against the Maran brothers, T Ananda Krishnan, a Malaysian businessman who bought over Aircel and one of his directors. According to the release, Dayanidhi and his elder brother Kalanidhi have been slapped with charges ranging fromn bribery, misuse of power and criminal conspiracy under sections 120 B, 13(2), 13(1)d  of the Indian Penal Code and sections 7 and 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Dayanidhi Maran, grand nephew of the DMK chief M Karunanidhi had to quit the Union cabinet in July this year following his interrogation by the CBI in connection with the 2G spectrum allocation during his tenure as communication minister in the UPA-I government.

The CBI charge is that Dayanidhi and Kalanaidhi forced Sivasankaran to part with his stakes in Aircel to Maxis. Later on, a Maxis owned subsidiary invested more than Rs600 crore in the Sun Network.  

The CBI remained tightlipped about the six-hour long raid. Along with the houses and offices of Maran brothers in Chennai and Delhi, their premises in Bangalore and Hyderabad too were raided.

Dayanidhi Maran was also in the news for setting up a 323 line exclusive BSNL telephone exchange in his house in Chennai. This was used to help the Sun TV Network and Dinakaran, the second largest newspaper in Tamil Nadu, both owned by the Maran family.

The CBI found that the private exchange was exclusively used to help Sun Network by laying 3.4 km long secret table along public roads to connect the lines to the business premises. According to the CBI, BSNL might have suffered a loss of Rs440 crore because of these 323 lines which were used to transfer ‘tons and tones of TV news and programmes faster than satellites to any part of the world’.

The raids did not surprise anyone as all were expecting the sleuths calling on the Maran for the last four months. “We are surprised it took almost four months for the CBI to swoop down on them. The brothers might have removed all discriminating documents by this time,” said one of the early morning walkers who watched the CBI team waiting for the security guards to open the big gates of the Maran household.