KALANIDHI MUST BE INCLUDED IN FIR, DEMANDS WHISTLEBLOWER

Friday, 04 October 2013 | Kumar Chellappan | CHENNAI

The First Information Report filed by the CBI against Dayanidhi Maran, former Union Minister for Communications, for setting up a private telephone exchange with 323 ISDN lines in his Chennai residence in 2006, has cast a big shadow over the Sun Network, the media empire owned by the Maran family, grand nephews of the DMK chief M Karunanidhi.

“The private telephone exchange with 323 ISDN lines was used exclusively for the growth of the Sun Network which include satellite television channels in all south Indian languages. The name of Kalanidhi Maran, the elder brother of Dayanidhi too should be included in the FIR,” CK Mathivanan, the former BSNL sub divisional engineer who was the whistleblower in exposing the Rs 440 crore telephone exchange scam, told The Pioneer.

It was Mathivanan who sounded Swadeshi Jagran Manch’s S Gurumurthy about the functioning of the private telephone exchange in Dayanidhi Maran’s residence. Gurumurthy wrote a comprehensive article in The New Indian Express in 2011 for which the Maran brothers retaliated with a legal notice. But till date they have not approached any court of law challenging  Gurumurthy.  As a marm of vindictiveness, authorities have put on block the pension benefits of Mathivanan   who retired from BSNL after 41 years of service in 2013 June. He is yet to get his montyhly pension for the “crime”.