It seems that The Central Bureau of Investigation has some tough time for Dayanidhi Maran, former union telecom minister in connection with the telephone exchange scam. CBI on Wednesday questioned former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran in connection with a case of allegedly using over 300 high data capacity BSNL telecom lines at his Boat House residence in Chennai.CBI had in its report to the Telecom Secretary alleged these lines were for use of large commercial enterprises to meet special needs such as video conferencing or transmission of huge volume of digital data for which heavy fee is charged but Sun TV got it for free. In October 2013, the agency filed a case against Maran in the case which is alleged to have caused a loss of Rs 440 crore to the exchequer.

According to the reports ,CBI had alleged that nearly 323 residential lines were allegedly in the name of the BSNL General Manager connecting the Boat House residence of Maran with the office of Sun TV through a dedicated underground cable during his tenure as Telecom Minister. These lines were not ordinary telephone lines but costly ISDN, capable of carrying huge data thus facilitating faster transmission of TV news and programmes across the globe, said a senior CBI officer.The agency had started a preliminary inquiry in 2011. CBI had in its report to the Telecom Secretary alleged these lines were for use of large commercial enterprises to meet special needs such as video conferencing or transmission of huge volume of digital data for which heavy fee is charged but Sun TV got it for free. In October 2013, the agency filed a case against Maran in the case which is alleged to have caused a loss of Rs 440 crore to the exchequer.

The agency had booked Maran on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating and relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The agency also started probing the role of Dayanidhi’s brother Kalanithi Maran, chairman of Sun TV, in this regard.Earlier this year, the CBI’s Special Task Force arrested V. Gowthaman, former Additional Private Secretary to Maran, S. Kannan, Chief Technical Officer of Sun TV and K.S. Ravi, Electrician in Sun TV in Chennai. They later got bail from Madras High Court.

Maran was called on Monday for questioning but he skipped the scheduled meeting, they said. He approached the Madras High Court seeking interim anticipatory bail which was granted to him yesterday.The Special Task Force said that Maran will appear on Wednesday at the CBI headquarters in the national capital for questioning.He appeared for questioning at 11 AM at the agency headquarters here and was being examined by a team of officials of Special Task Force of CBI which is handling the investigation in the case, CBI sources said.