Madras HC rejects Maran brothers’ plea to quash CBI charges against them

Madras High Court on Friday rejected a plea by Maran brothers — Kalanithi Maran and Dayanidhi Maran — to quash charges framed against them by a CBI court in the illegal telephone exchange case, reported news agency ANI.

In June this year, the CBI had contended that the trial court was wring in discharging Maran brothers and other accused in the “illegal” telephone exchange case, saying a prima facie case had been made out against them.

Commencing arguments on the CBI’s appeal filed against the trial court’s March 14 order before Justice G Jayachandran, the agency’s counsel Srinivasan accused Dayanidhi of having abused his official position to obtain a large number of telephone connections and allowing them to be commercially used by Sun Network owned by Kalanithi Maran during 2004-06.

The Madras HC had also refused a plea by the counsel for Maran brothers to adjourn the hearing on the appeal till next month end due to non-availability of senior counsels.

The case is to with the set up of an allegedly illegal private telephone exchange at the residence of Maran during 2004-06 when he was the telecom minister, causing an alleged loss of Rs 1.78 crore to the exchequer.

According to the CBI, Maran, during the period of June 2004 to December 2006, when he was Union minister for communication and information technology, had misused his office and installed a private telephone exchange at his residences in Chennai and utilised the facility for business transactions involving Sun Network.