Former Telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran was "evasive" during his questioning by CBI in a case of alleged abuse of his office in getting installed high capacity BSNL lines at his residences to facilitate speedy transmission of programmes to a TV firm owned by his brother and could be called again.
Highly-placed CBI sources claimed the 48-year-old Maran, who held Telecom and IT portfolio in UPA-I from 2004 to 2007, was "evasive on many points" during his 22-hour questioning over three days beginning last Wednesday.

A network that ruled the television space in Tamil Nadu for two decades stares at the threat of closure.

Kala Murali, a resident of Chennai, lives in a joint family of eight members. Every day, she cooks lunch early along with her sister-in-law so that she can settle down to the few hours she can truly call her own. Together they watch Tamil serials Thamarai and Pon Oonjal on Sun TV. “They are gripping, women-centric serials, where the woman is the protagonist,” Murali said. Then later in the day, she and her husband watch more series on Sun TV, especially Nadhaswaram. “This is a daily ritual.”

India’s Finance and Information & Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley is expected to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 2 July, 2015 to discuss the security clearance issue for Kalanithi Maran owned Sun TV’s 33 television channels and FM radio stations.

The issue has assumed urgency given that the entire auction process of FM phase III has been held up with the I&B Ministry not convening a meeting of the application review committee. All the other 28 companies, barring those affiliated to Maran's Sun TV Network, that had applied for the auction and migration from phase II to phase III, have been granted security clearance.

Amid reports that Sun TV Group may be compelled to approach Courts of law following the view of Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi that it should not have been denied security clearance, it is understood that the Home Ministry has again approached the Information and Broadcasting Ministry (I&B) for its viewpoint before giving a final order.

Reacting to this, a Sun TV official told indiantelevision.com, “Our consistent view has been that the TV and radio broadcast business of Sun TV Network Ltd cannot be put in any jeopardy on the ground that the promoter is facing charges in another case. Till such time the case is decided, the cardinal principle of presumed innocent till pronounced guilty shall apply. Any deviation from this time honoured tradition of law will be a violation of natural justice.”