Former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran questioned for second day by CBI

NEW DELHI: Former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran was questioned for the second consecutive day today in connection with the alleged use of over 770 high-capacity BSNL data lines at his three residences in Chennai and Delhi to facilitate speedy transmission of programmes by a Sun TV firm owned by his brother.

After Maran's questioning for over seven hours again today, he was asked to appear before CBI's Special Task Force officials again tomorrow, official sources said.

The sources said that the former Union Minister, who was questioned in a room opposite to 'Electronic Niketan' where he used to sit as a Minister during his tenure as Telecom Minister from 2004-07, was confronted with the documents collected by the agency in this case.

The 48-year-old Minister was questioned by CBI for nearly seven hours yesterday. He will be confronted with more documents tomorrow as well, the sources said.

Today, Maran told reporters that he was willing to cooperate with CBI. "This has given me an opportunity to give them (CBI) evidences collected through RTI from BSNL and MTNL which clearly states that according to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), it's only one connection and not 300 connections as claimed earlier.

"I hope something good comes out of this," Maran said. Maran had already been questioned in connection with the case in January and October last year, while his brother Kalanithi was quizzed once in September last year.

It is alleged that a loss of over Rs 1.8 crore was caused to the exchequer by use of such large number of high capacity ISDN lines at Maran's Boat House Road residence in Chennai.

The residence was allegedly turned into a "virtual telephone exchange" to facilitate speedy transmission of programmes by Sun TV owned by Maran's brother Kalanithi.

The questioning comes on a day when reports suggest that Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley may take up the case of Sun TV with Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the Union Home Ministry rejected a proposal for granting security clearance to the television network.

Sun TV had approached Union Home Ministry for security clearance and its case was supported by Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

However, the Home Ministry declined to give clearance, saying the owners of the TV network were facing cases for various alleged offences including money laundering.