CBI banks on Apollo heiress Suneeta Reddy to nail Marans

NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation ( CBI) hopes to make Suneeta Reddy of Apollo Hospitals a witness to tighten its case against Dayanidhi Maran, his brother Kalanithi and others in the Aircel-Maxis deal. Reddy owns a 26% stake in Aircel, which Maran allegedly forced serial entrepreneur C Sivasankaran to sell to Maxis.

CBI sources said they were hopeful that Reddy would agree, thus bolstering some of the agency’s claims in the latest case registered in the 2G spectrum scam in which the Marans, Malaysian billionaire T Ananda Krishnan , Ralph Marshal of Maxis group and three companies were named as accused.

Although Reddy, joint managing director at Apollo, owns a stake in Aircel, CBI had left her out of the FIR.
When the deal between Malaysia-based Maxis and Aircel was struck following Dayanidhi Maran’s intervention , Reddy bought a 26% stake in the company. CBI sources said Reddy wasn’t aware of the conspiracy behind the buyout when she picked up the minority stake.

‘Reddy not a beneficiary of Aircel-Maxis deal’

NEW DELHI: Suneetha Reddy of Apollo Hospitals, whom CBI hopes to make a witness in the Aircel-Maxis case against former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran, owns a 26% stake in Aircel but had not benefited from the deal, CBI sources said.

“She does not appear to be part of the company. She was just pursuing her business and she was not a beneficiary in the Aircel-Maxis deal. She was told that it is a profitable venture so she bought stake in the company.” Reddy was examined by the agency once. Officials said they would first question the accused persons and send letter rogatories (LRs) to Malaysia for details of Maxis. Reddy could be examined after that.

The case against the Marans and the other accused was registered on Sunday, and on Monday CBI carried out raids on several premises in Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad.

A day after the raids, agency sources said they had enough evidence against Maran and the other accused in the case.

Since the preliminary inquiry was registered, CBI teams collected documents from the department of telecom (DoT), RBI, Registrar of Companies and details of bank transactions made primarily through Standard Chartered Bank, which officials said provided enough evidence.

Also, the agency has statements of several DoT officials who claimed Maran had delayed the files of Aircel when Sivasankaran was its owner.

A source claimed, “The documents and analysis by telecom department and Trai has also revealed that the cost of 2G licences would have been much higher if it was given to Sivasankaran.”

CBI has also collected documents from the telecom ministry, showing that Ralph Marshal and Ananda Krishnan had visited Dayanidhi Maran at his office several times.

Apart from Maxis’s investment in Kalanithi Maran’s Sun Direct TV, CBI is also probing whether the Malaysia-based company made investments in other ventures of the Maran family or Maran had made investments somewhere else during the period.