CBI grills Dayanidhi Maran for 7 hrs in 770 telephone lines case

According to sources Mr Maran was questioned for nearly seven hours by the agency’s Special Task Force which is handling the investigation. 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.

“This has given me an opportunity to give them (CBI) evidence 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,” Mr Maran told reporters after the questioning.

Mr 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.

The CBI, in July 2013, had filed a case against BSNL officials for allegedly allotting high-speed telephone lines at Mr Maran’s Boat House residence in Chennai.

“Investigations have revealed 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 residence in Chennai,” sources said. In its FIR, the CBI had mentioned over 320 lines but during the probe it has surfaced that the over 770 BSNL lines were installed at his three residences. The agency had filed the FIR following its preliminary enquiry in which there was enough material to proceed with a regular case against BSNL officials.