All seven discharged in telephone exchange case

Chennai: More than two months after former Union minister and DMK leader A. Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi and all other accused were acquitted in a sensitive 2G spectrum allocation scam case by a special court in New Delhi, a CBI court in Chennai discharged on Wednesday, Dayanidhi Maran, Raja’s former colleague in the UPA government, his elder brother Kalanidhi Maran and five others, in the illegal telephone exchange case. Delivering the verdict in less than two minutes, special judge for CBI cases S. Natarajan said that there was no prima facie in the charges.

Dayanidhi Maran reached the court hall at 2.15 pm. A few minutes later, others including former BSNL general manager K. Brahmanathan, former deputy general manager M. P. Velusamy, Dayanidhi Maran’s private secretary Gaut
haman, and Sun TV officials, entered the court hall. Minutes before the commencement of trial, Kalanidhi Maran reached the court.

The judge confirmed that all the accused were present in the hall. Later, he said that Brahmanathan’s petition was allowed as were the others’ petitions, and there was no prima facie in the charges framed by the CBI.

“This court has come to the conclusion that the prosecution has not placed sufficient material to establish that the allegation that Dayanidhi Maran got more phone connections with malafide intentions to use them for Sun TV,” he said. He said that without Sun TV being made an accused, the prosecution’s case against Kalanidhi Maran was not maintainable, so also the case against Kannan and Ravi as both are employees of the television network.

The judge discharged all seven from the charges as there was no sufficient material to frame charges against any of them in the case.