JUDGMENT :

N. ANAND VENKATESH, J.

1. These Criminal Original Petitions have been filed challenging the proceedings pending before the Court below against the accused persons in C.C. No. 12 of 2017.

2. Case of the prosecution is that, the 3rd Accused Dayanidhi Maran, while he was the Minister for Communication and Information Technology (MOC&IT) in the Government of India during 2004 to 2007 abused and misused his office in connivance with the other accused A-1 [Brahamadathan], A-2 [M.P. Velusamy] (both were Senior Officials of BSNL (Chief General Manager), A-4 [V. Vedagiri Gowtham], Private Secretary, A-5 [K.S. Ravi] Electrician and A-6 [S. Kannan] CTO, SUN TV and his brother A-7 [Kalanithi Maran] CMD of SUN TV and had obtained pecuniary advantage and caused the exchequer a loss of Rs. 1.78 crores by installing a private telephone exchange at his residences in Boat Club and Gopalapuram at Chennai, Tamil Nadu, which he used for business transactions involving the Sun Network. More than 700 high-end Telecom lines, having PRA/BRA/ ISDN/leased-line, were installed at the third accused residences in the Boat Club area and Gopalapuram area of the Chennai City. They were installed under the service category and bills were not raised for its utilisation. Besides, illegal installation of Landlines with ISDN facilities, on the instruction of the 3rd accused, additional SIM cards for use of mobile phones with fancy numbers were blocked for SUN TV and distributed to private individuals connected with SUN TV Network. The facilities given to A-3 was excessive, without authority and not in consonance to the Rules and entitlement of Minister or Member of Parliament. Records were fabricated and used as genuine to cover up the misdeed. Based on fabricated documents, accounts were falsified to show as if there are no outstanding dues from A-3.

3. Based on the above facts and the materials collected in the course of investigation, a final report came to be filed against the above said accused persons for an offence under section 120B r/w 409, 467, 471, 477-A IPC and Section 13(2) r/w 13(1)(c) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and Substantive Offences thereof.

4. To substantiate the above allegations, C.B.I. had relied upon 124 documents most of them are files maintained in the course of transaction of the BSNL in their day to day activities and the statements of 62 witnesses recorded under section 161 Cr.P.C. 1973

5. After furnishing the material records relied by the prosecution to the persons accused of the offences, as contemplated under section 207 of Cr.P.C. 1973 the trial Court heard the petitions for discharge filed by four of the accused persons. After hearing both sides, the trial Court by virtue of the power conferred under Section 239 Cr.P.C. 1973 discharged all the seven accused persons holding that there is no ground to try the persons accused of the offences alleged.

6. The order of the trial Court, discharging all the accused persons, became a subject matter of challenge before this Court in Criminal Revision Petition Nos. 671, 682 to 684 of 2018, filed by the CBI. All the revision petitions were allowed and the trial Court was directed to frame charges and complete the trial within a period of 12 months.

7. This order was subsequently confirmed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court. It will be useful to extract the order of the Hon'ble Supreme Court hereunder:

"Heard the learned counsels for the petitioners and perused the relevant material.

Exemption from filing certified copy of the impugned order is granted.

We are not inclined to interfere. However, as recording our reasons for the above conclusion may affect the trial we refrain from doing so. It will, naturally, be open for each of the accused to urge all contentions before the learned trial Court and the trial will be held without being influenced by any of the observations/findings recorded in the impugned orders.

The Special Leave Petitions are disposed of in the above terms."

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