Special CBI court acquitted former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran and others for the Aircel Maxis case.
In a 435-page order, a special CBI court in Delhi today acquitted former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran, his brother and Managing Director of Sun group Kalanithi Maran, and then telecom secretary JS Sarma in the Aircel Maxis case. The main charge in the scam was that Dayanidhi Maran, in his position as the telecom minister between 2004-2007, coerced C Sivasankaran, then owner of Aircel Cellular Limited, to sell the company to Malaysia based Maxis Communications.
The court did not frame charges and discharged all the accused, pointing out that the case seems to be a result of "misreading of files and contradictory statements by witnesses".
On the main corruption charge against Mr Maran, the court concluded that unlike what C Sivasankaran had alleged in his complaint to the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI, the Telecom Minister in UPA 1 government was not responsible for creating a "constricting business environment" which forced C Sivasankaran to sell the company to Maxis in 2005.
Mr Sivasankaran had alleged that Aircel had been suffering for delay in getting 2G licenses for Bihar, Punjab, Kerala, Kolkata and Haryana. But the court remarked that based on records contained in official files, most of these files never reached the minister, and was dealt at a bureaucratic level.
The judgement read "It has already been recorded that the financial capacity of the company was suspect from day one and it was also indulging in the grey market activities and sold the ISP licence without permission of the Department of Telecom. The Minister was suspicious... A suspicious mind cannot be termed as a conspiratorial mind."
The court also observed that Mr Sivasankaran had been in the telecom business for a while, that "He was no novice in telecom sector. He is deemed to know the pace at which Department of Telecom works."
Judge OP Saini added, "It were his own mistakes and deficiencies which led to the situation, which he complains about."
Dayanidhi Maran, who was present during the court hearing along with his brother Kalanithi Maran, reacted to the court order by saying, "I had total faith in the Indian judicial system and never abused or misused my power."