Special public prosecutor moves SC challenging discharge order of the Marans

New Delhi: Special Public Prosecutor, Anand Grover, on Friday moved the Supreme Court challenging the special courts order discharging Dayanidhi Maran, Kalanithi Maran and others in the Aircel-Maxis case.

Grover mentioned the matter before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India, J. S Khehar, and said that the discharge order had been wrongly passed without furnishing of bail bonds by the accused.

He also sought on behalf of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) that the properties attached under the order may not be released.

The court asked Grover to file his application and said that the matter would be taken up with the main case regarding cancellation of Aircel’s 2G spectrum license at 2 pm.

In an order by a special CBI court on 2 February, it dropped all charges brought by both CBI and the Enforcement Directorate against former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran and others accused in the Aircel-Maxis case.

The court gave Dayanidhi Maran, his brother Kalanithi and others a clean chit. It did not find them guilty of the charges made out in the chargesheet.

The Aircel-Maxis case is related to allegations that as telecom minister, Dayanidhi Maran used his influence to coerce Aircel owner, C. Sivasankaran, into parting with his stake in the company to T. Ananda Krishnan-led Maxis Communications Berhad.

This was allegedly done in lieu of investments by the Malaysian company through an arm in Sun Direct TV Pvt. Ltd. Dayanidhi Maran is one of the promoters of Sun Direct and was telecom minister between 2004-07.

The CBI had filed a chargesheet against the Maran brothers, Ralph Marshall, Maxis owner T. Ananda Krishnan, and four companies—Sun Direct TV, Astro All Asia Networks Plc, Maxis Communications Berhad, and South Asia Entertainment Holdings Ltd, Malaysia. Marshall was the chief executive officer of Astro All Asia Networks.

They were chargesheeted for offences punishable under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and under relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

In a separate money laundering case, the ED chargesheeted the Maran brothers, Kalanithi’s wife Kavery, managing director of SAFL K. Shanmugam, SAFL and Sun Direct TV under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA).

The ED alleged that the two firms, SAFL and Sun Direct TV, received Rs742.58 crore as proceeds of crime from Mauritius-based firms and that the two firms were then allegedly controlled by Kalanithi Maran

The case will be heard at 2pm on Friday