Chennai:
Dayanidhi Maran, the Textiles Minister and a senior leader of the DMK, has denied reports that he misused his office as Telecom Minister to establish a virtual telephone exchange of nearly 300 phone lines at his house which were then secretly made available for use to Sun TV, which is owned by his brother, Kalanidhi Maran.
Mr Maran was Minister for Communications and Technology from June 2004 to May 2007.
"This is a systematic campaign planned to malign my party and me", said Mr Maran in Chennai this evening. "I was in the political wilderness when these allegations were made...if I have done any wrong, I am open to a probe on the allegations," he added.
A statement from Mr Maran's lawyer also declared that he is suing a Tamil newspaper that has repeatedly reported that Mr Maran cost the country hundreds of crores through the alleged telecom scam. (
Read the full statement)
Mr Maran and his lawyer have pointed out that the government-owned telecom service provider BSNL has already clarified that only one telephone line had been provided to the minister at his Chennai residence. BSNL had also testified that Mr Maran did not exhaust even the quota of free calls he was entitled to as a minister from 2006 to 2009.
The newspaper that's being sued by Mr Maran points out that the CBI studied the allegations against Mr Maran and recommended action against him as early as September 2007 (Mr Maran resigned as Telecom Minister in May of that year and was replaced by A Raja, who is now in jail, also for allegedly misusing his office to award mobile network licenses at bargains to companies he illicitly favoured).