Chennai: Rattled by the late night arrest of his aide and two staffs of the Sun TV in the illegal telephone exchange case, former Union Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran on Thursday went on the defensive accusing the CBI of trying to fix him to please an “RSS ideologue”.
Significantly, his uncle and DMK scion M K Stalin jumped to his support and separately told journalists that the arrest that comes close on the heels of the meeting between “two leaders” (Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa) in Chennai was politically motivated.
Maran, who is the grandnephew of the DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi, claimed that sleuths of the agency had used third degree methods on the three to extract statements implicating him in the case. Since they did not agree to this, the agency arrested them.
The CBI had on Wednesday night arrested Maran’s former additional private secretary Gowthaman, the Sun TV’s chief technical officer S Kannan and Sun TV electrician L S Ravi, in connection with the setting up of an illegal telephone exchange from Maran’s posh Boat Club residence in Chennai to the office of the Sun TV, located 3.4 kms away, in 2007 (See Story – The Illegal Exchange that Caused Rs 400 Crore Loss). The Sun TV is owned by his elder brother Kalanithi Maran.
Significantly, Maran told journalists that a former Union Minister from Tamil Nadu “who considers himself to be an intellectual” was responsible for registering the case during the erstwhile UPA regime. Now an RSS ideologue (chartered accountant S Gurumurthy) had latched on it.
He did not elaborate why the Minister (from the Congress) was keen to fix him. Though Maran did not name the politician he threw enough hints on the latter’s identity saying the person was someone who was interested only in his personal welfare and that of his son’s future.
However, to a pointed query if he was referring to the then Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, the DMK leader quipped: “Chidambaram is not the only intellectual” around.
“The CBI tortured them and forced them to speak against me. They were also promised that they would be let free if they implicated me,” Maran claimed. Earlier in the day, he called on Karunanidhi.
Insisting that he had no illegal telephone exchange at his residence, Maran said that he had only one telephone connection about which he would write to the CBI. “The three people who have been arrested had cooperated with the CBI in the last 18 months. The investigation itself has been going on for eight years. Now they are trying to fix the case. The CBI should be a fact finding bureau and not a fixing bureau,” he said.
Maran said he had no choice but to fight it out and that he had already explained to the CBI on the issue.
Meanwhile, Gurumurthy, who exposed the case in the media over three years ago and had also moved the Supreme Court to seek an early probe, told journalists that Maran should have named the RSS ideologue. “Maran’s allegations could not be more ridiculous. The case came up during the UPA regime. I exposed this based only on the CBI documents,” he said.
According to him, the question now was not about the arrest of the three persons, but why there were no arrests in the last seven years though the case was initiated in 2007. “The previous UPA Government of which the DMK was a constituent had delayed the case and kept the investigation in abeyance,” he charged. If Maran felt that that the CBI had used third degree methods on the accused, he could well prove the same in court.
Gurumurthy insisted that the CBI must ensure that all those connected with the case are arrested. “The arrest of the three is only a procedure. They need to be questioned to get evidence before big names are picked up,” he added.
