The Enforcement Directorate has said that there is evidence to show that payoffs to the tune of Rs 773 crore to family members of DMK party chief M Karunanidhi in the 2G spectrum scam but said they said they didn’t have enough evidence of their own yet and are still investigating the matter.
According to a Times of India report the investigating agency told the Joint Parliament Committee that they had evidence that the DB Group had paid Rs 223 crore to Kalaignar TV which is owned by Karunanidhi’s wife and daughter.
Will there be enough evidence against Karunanidhi and his family members? PTI
The matter was investigated under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), ED officials said, adding that it was also investigating the Aircel-Maxis deal and whether former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran or his family had benefitted from it.
However, when questioned by JPC members like T Siva from the DMK and Manish Tewari of the Congress about whether they had established the payments being made the agency representatives reportedly said
they have not been establish the fact independently and they went by the CBI charge sheet on the issue.
The CBI is reported to have described the Rs 200-crore inflow into Kalaignar TV as “illegal gratification” or bribe in exchange for the spectrum allocation allegedly made by former Telecom Minister A Raja.
The agency was also at the receiving end of criticism from the members of the parliamentary panel for its slow pace of investigation into the 2G scam and sought more details on the money trail it was probing.
Members including Gurudas Dasgupta of the CPI and Ravi Shankar Prasad of the BJP wanted to know whether all the cases being probed by the agency came under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
Agency officials reportedly said that while most cases pertained to FEMA, it was investigating certain issues under the (PMLA) also, adding that it had still not been able to establish the total amount of money involved in both cases yet.
