Marans move SC against 2G court summons

NEW DELHI: Former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran and his brother Kalanithi Maran on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court challenging a special CBI court’s order summoning them as accused in the Aircel-Maxis case arising out of the 2G spectrum allocation scam.
The Marans submitted that the Aircel-Maxis case had nothing to do with the 2G scam and the special court, conducting trial in the scam, had no jurisdiction to hear the matter.
The Marans’ advocate, Amarendra Saran, said not a single licence was allotted by Dayanidhi Maran during his tenure as telecom minister and the Aircel-Maxis case could not be clubbed with the 2G case.
“The special CBI court was constituted only to hear 2G cases and it has no jurisdiction to hear a case which has nothing to do with the scam,” he said.
The Marans said their right to approach the high court would be taken away if the 2G court conducted trial in the Aircel-Maxis case.
The Supreme Court is likely to take up their petition on February 6.
A special court had on October 29 last year issued summons to the Maran brothers and six others in the Aircel-Maxis case. They were asked to appear before the court on March 2.
“I have carefully gone through the copy of the FIR, charge-sheet, statement of witnesses and related documents comprised in the voluminous record of the case. On perusal of the record, I am satisfied that there is enough incriminating material on record to proceed against the accused. Accordingly, I take cognizance of the case,” the court had said in its order.
The CBI had said in court that Dayanidhi Maran had “pressured” and “forced” Chennai-based telecom promoter C Sivasankaran to sell his stakes in Aircel and two subsidiary firms to Malaysian firm Maxis Group in 2006.
The CBI had in August last year charge-sheeted them, alleging that the former minister had entered into a criminal conspiracy with T Ananda Krishnan, owner of Maxis, and coerced Sivasankaran, owner of Aircel, to sell his shares to Krishnan allegedly in lieu of investments by the foreign company into Sun Direct TV Pvt Ltd. Dayanidhi Maran is one of the promoters of Sun Direct.
The case was registered by CBI in 2011.