The Supreme Court on Monday disposed of a plea filed against DMK leader Dayanidhi Maran for allegedly setting up an illegal telephone exchange at his Chennai house during his tenure as telecom minister, saying CBI has already filed a case in this regard.
A bench headed by Justice B.S. Chauhan disposed of the PIL filed by one Swaminathan Gurumurthy, on whose plea the apex court had on January 11 issued notices to CBI.
CBI has recently filed a case against the then Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran and BSNL officials for allegedly allotting 300 high-speed telephone lines to Mr. Maran’s residence in Chennai which were extended to his brother’s channel.
The agency which had registered the inquiry into allegations in 2011 had wrapped up its probe in July.
The probe had started in 2011, nearly four years after getting complaints that a ‘virtual’ telephone exchange was allegedly set-up at the then Telecom Minister’s house for facilitating data transfer from Sun TV.
Earlier, the apex court refused to entertain a similar PIL against Mr. Maran saying that political battles should not be fought in courts.
“Supreme Court is not a dumping ground for political fights,” the bench had said while expressing reservations about entertaining the PIL filed by a social activist.
