2G scam: Dayanidhi Maran under scanner now

The focus of the 2G spectrum scam seems to have deflected to another DMK minister in the UPA ministry with the textile minister and a former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran facing allegations of spectrum payoff by a Malaysian company, Maxis.

Maran is under the scanner of both the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) over alleged favours in the allocation of spectrum to Aircel, after it received investment from Maxis.

While the CBI has made preliminary inquiry on irregularities in the allocation of spectrum between 2001 and 2007, the JPC is looking into allocation of commercial contracts of the telecom ministry between 1998 and 2009.

Meanwhile, the Tehellka magazine has carried a report alleging that Dayanidhi Maran, who denied a telecom licence to Aircel for over 2 years, granted it a licence when the ownership changed to Malaysia-based Maxis.

Maran is alleged to have cleared the decks only after a sister company of Maxis invested Rs675 crore in Maran-owned Sun TV.
 
The DMK leader has send a legal notice to Tehellka, for publishing "blatantly concocted" stories.

"The reports published in the magazine are totally false, defamatory, derogatory and has been published with a malafide intention and ulterior motive. He has no shareholding or interest in any form in Sun-Direct TV and it is a separate legal entity and it is no way connected with its business transactions," Maran's lawyer cited him as saying.