Dayanidhi Maran - Controversies

Controversies

• Maran has been accused of receiving kickbacks to the tune of Rs 700 crore from Maxis Communications. In reply, he has issued a legal notice to Tehelka the news magazine which have published the report.
• According to the CBI, he had mis-utilized 323 telephone connections from BSNL during his tenure as the Telecom minister, and caused the Government of India a huge loss.
• CBI is going to start fresh probe if Dayanidhi Maran had role in Aircel/Maxis Communications deal, CBI's investigations so far have been limited to decisions taken after 2007 by Maran's successor A Raja.
• Maran has been accused of demanding the Tatas 33.33% shares from the Tata-Rupert Murdoch DTH project (Tata Sky) for the Sun Network. In reply, he has asked the news papers which have published the report to apologize and threatened to go to court seeking compensation of Rs. 1 crore for personality damage from The New Indian Express, Dinamani and Jaya TV.
• In May 2007 the Tamil daily newspaper, Dinakaran, owned by his brother Kalanidhi Maran, published a survey whose results declared that 70% of the people of Tamil Nadu favoured Karunanidhi's younger son M.K. Stalin as his likely successor as against 2% for Stalin's elder brother M.K. Azhagiri. This resulted in M.K.Azhagiri's supporters burning down the office of Dinakaran in the city of Madurai that resulted in the death of 3 employees and injuries to several others. This resulted in Karunanidhi removing Maran from his position as Union Minister. The Prime Minister refused to dismiss him, and the situation was not resolved till Maran himself resigned on 13 May.
• Maran resigned from Ministry of Textiles after CBI accused Maran, a former telecom minister, of forcing the promoter of Chennai-based telecom company Aircel to sell his firm to Malaysian firm Maxis in 2006.
• On 26 July 2012, CBI grilled Dayanidhi Maran in connection with controversial Aircel-Maxis deal, which fetch him Rs 547 crore.