Maran brothers received 2,500-page chargesheet

Former Union Telecom Minister and DMK leader Dayanidhi Maran, his elder brother and Sun TV group chairman Kalanithi Maran, and five other accused on Tuesday received the charge-sheet in the illegal telephone exchange case registered against them by the CBI in 2013. The charge sheet in the case runs up to 2,500 pages.

The CBI had alleged that between 2004 and 2007 when Dayanidhi was the Union Minister for Telecommunications, an illegal telephone exchange was set up at his house in Chennai.

These lines were illegally connected to the Sun TV’s office facilitating their use for transmitting huge data including video and audio for uplinking content for the Sun TV broadcasts. The CBI said for a two year period as many as 364 illegal telephone numbers / lines were installed at Dayanidhi’s house in Gopalapuram.

Later, another 353 telephone connections were given through the illegal telephone exchange at his new house in the posh Boat Club area. Also, 10 BSNL post-paid mobile connections with vanity numbers were given to the Sun TV Network.

The BSNL did not raise any bills for these illegal lines causing a loss of about Rs 1.78 crore to the BSNL’s Chennai Telephones.

Besides, the Marans, the then Chief General Managers of Chennai Telephones were also arraigned as accused in the case in addition to the then minister’s private secretary.

The Maran brothers along with the other accused in the case appeared before the XIII Additional Judge for CBI cases, S. Jawahar, on Tuesday and received the copy of the charge sheet. The counsel for the Maran brothers submitted that they wished to file an application seeking to discharge them from the case.

The judge then adjourned the case to July 28 to decide on their plea.