By IANS,
Chennai : A day after the CBI booked M. Karunanidhi’s grand-nephews — former union minister Dayanidhi Maran and promoter of Sun TV and SpiceJet airline Kalanithi Maran — the DMK president Tuesday said that he would never let them down. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa dismissed the action against the Marans as an eyewash.
Conducted across three cities – Chennai, Hyderabad and the national capital – the Central Bureau of Investigaton (CBI) searches in connection with the second generation (2G) telecom airwaves case involved the premises of the Marans as also of Apollo Hospitals director Suneeta Reddy.
Refuting media reports that he and the DMK party were unconcerned about the Maran brothers, Karunanidhi said: “Kalanithi and Dayanidhi are like my children, entrusted to me by their father Murasoli Maran, and I will protect them.”
Karunanidhi said he would support them in their legal battle.
Former communications minister Dayanidhi Maran is under the CBI scanner following a complaint by industrialist C. Sivasankaran that Maran forced him to exit mobile telephone company Aircel.
Sivasankaran alleged that Aircel was not given telecom licences and he was forced to sell his holdings to Malaysia-based Maxis Group owned by T. Ananda Krishnan.
The CBI Sunday registered a case against Maran brothers — Dayanidhi and Kalanithi — under the Prevention of Corruption Act, a probe agency official said in Delhi.
A first information report (FIR) was also registered against Ralph Marshall, CEO of Astra TV that invested in Sun TV, and T. Ananda Krishnan.
Karunanidhi said he did not react to the CBI raids and the case against his daughter and Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi as he did not want to politicise the issue. Kanimozhi is in judicial custody in the 2G spectrum allocation case.
He said he kept quiet on the case against his daughter as the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government was not responsible for the raids.
In March, Kanimozhi and Karunanidhi’s second wife Dayalu Ammal were questioned by the CBI in Chennai in connection with Rs.214 crore received by Kalaignar TV, in which Kanimozhi and Dayalu Ammal hold stakes, from DB Realty group of companies.
Kanimozhi is in jail now charged as co-conspirator in the 2G spectrum scam, alongwith DMK leader and former communications minister A. Raja.
Karunanidhi accused the media of trying to destabilise the DMK and to hurt him with reports that he was unconcerned about Kalanithi and Dayanidhi.
Jayalalithaa dismissed the CBI raids on Maran brothers as an eyewash and said these were to befool people.
She told reporters here that the CBI would have found nothing at their houses four years after the scam.