The Madras High Court on Friday dismissed petitions filed by former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran, his brother Kalanithi Maran and three others to quash all charges framed against them by a special court for CBI cases here, in the alleged illegal BSNL telephone exchange case.
Justice A.D. Jagadish Chandira, however, remanded the matter to the special court for framing the charges afresh, since it was brought to his notice that the lower court had framed common charges against all the seven accused in the case, without any material to substantiate individual involvement in the alleged offences.
“The trial court is directed to carefully look into all the materials and frame proper and necessary charges in respect of each and every accused (A1 to A7) in accordance with procedures contemplated in the Code of Criminal Procedure, particularly Chapter XVII, based on the materials available,” he ordered.
It was made clear that the prosecution could also assist the trial court by filing draft charges. Apart from the Maran brothers, those who wanted the charges quashed were SUN TV electrician K.S. Ravi, the former Minister’s personal secretary V. Gowthaman and the television network’s Chief Technical Officer S. Kannan.
The two other accused in the case — K.B. Brahmadathan and M.P. Velusamy — both former Chief General Managers of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), had not approached the High Court challenging the charges framed against them.
False premise
During the course of the arguments, it was submitted on behalf of Mr. Dayanidhi Maran that the basic premise on which the CBI had rested its case itself was false and therefore a person who had brought in telecommunication revolution in the country should not be put through the ordeal of facing the trial without any basis whatsoever.
His counsel claimed that the charge of his client having obtained more than 760 telephone connections at his residence, during his ministership, was completely wrong. He asserted that Mr. Maran had obtained only 10 connections at his residence in Chennai and around 12 to 13 connections in Delhi. These parent connections had several “child numbers” attached to them.
Even otherwise, there was no bar under law for a Minister to obtain multiple telephone connections, given the nature of work that he/she performs, he argued. It was also contended that the CBI had proceeded on the basis of an erroneous assumption that a cap of three telephone connections imposed on the Members of Parliament would apply to the Ministers.
According to him, there was no shred of evidence to prove that the telephone connections were illegally used by Sun TV Network, owned by his elder brother. He said the telephone connections could at the most be used only for phone-in television programmes but there was no material to prove such usage.
Though the Supreme Court had refused to interfere with the High Court’s July 25 order which reversed discharge of all seven accused from the case by the special court on March 14, the senior counsel said it would not preclude the court from examining the charges framed pursuant to those orders and quash them if they were found to be untenacious.
Mr. Kalanithi Maran’s lawyer had also contended that there were absolutely no materials on record to implicate him in the case. It was pointed out that the chairman and managing director of a company could not be held responsible and prosecuted on the basis of a presumption that the company benefited out of alleged misuse of some telephone connections.
Stating that the trial court was duty-bound to find out if there were prima facie materials available to frame charges against every individual accused in a case, he said the charges framed against Mr. Maran virtually amounted to non application of mind.
