The CBI will soon send judicial requests to Bermuda and the United Kingdom for details of the money trail in the Aircel-Maxis deal, in which the former Telecom Minister, Dayanidhi Maran, is an accused.
The agency has alleged Mr. Maran had received Rs. 547 crore in kickbacks from the Malaysian telecom company, sources said. But he has denied any wrongdoing. Tracking the money trail, the CBI probe has reached the shores of the Caribbean island of Bermuda and the United Kingdom, from where the money was routed to Indian companies, sources in the agency said.
They said the agency might send Letters Rogatory (LRs) in the first week of March to the U.K. and Bermuda, besides Malaysia and Mauritius as planned earlier.
The CBI had earlier confined to Malaysia and Mauritius its probe into the alleged routing of money in the takeover of Aircel by Maxis, they said.
Besides Mr. Maran, the CBI had accused his brother Kalanithi Maran, director of Sun Direct TV; Maxis Communication chairman T. Ananda Krishnan; senior executive of Astro All Asia Network and Maxis Ralph Marshall, and three companies, Astro All Asia Networks, Sun Direct TV and Maxis Communications, of complicity. The former Aircel chief, C. Sivasankaran, has alleged that Mr. Maran, when he was Telecom Minister, had favoured the Maxis group in the takeover of his company, and in return investments were made by the company through Astro Networks in Sun TV owned by the Maran family. — PTI
