Court discharges Maran brothers

CHENNAI:In a relief to DMK leader and former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran, a special CBI court here on Wednesday discharged him, his brother Kalanithi and five other accused in the “illegal” telephone exchange case. This becomes the second corruption case where DMK leaders have got legal relief, after a Delhi special court acquitted former Union minister A Raja and Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi in the 2G spectrum case..

Holding that there was no sufficient material to frame charges against any of them, special judge S Natarajan allowed the petitions seeking discharge in the case related to alleged 700 telephone line exchange set up at Dayanidhi’s house in 2004-06 when he was the minister and its ‘misuse’ for Sun TV owned by his brother.

Other accused who have been discharged are former BSNL general manager K Brahmanathan, former BSNL deputy general manager MP Velusamy, Dayanidhi’s private secretary V Gauthaman, and Sun TV’s KS Ravi and S Kannan. “I now stand vindicated..I believe in our judicial system, I am so happy that justice has triumphed,” Dayanidhi told Times Now, reacting to the court’s verdict. He dubbed the charges against him as “exaggerated lies, sensationalised lies.”

“CBI had to please someone’s ego and they were forced to file the case,” he said. Senior counsel Kabil Sibal, who had appeared for the brothers, had contended that the case was foisted on them.