The CBI on Wednesday informed the Supreme Court of a new twist in the 2G case against former communications minister Dayanidhi Maran, with one of the complainants who leveled serious charges against him in the Aircel-Maxis deal now asking the CBI director to stop the investigation against the DMK leader, calling him 'innocent'.

NGO Telecom Watchdog’s secretary Anil Kumar, one of three petitioners who sought a CBI probe against Mr Maran, now alleged in his letter that Chennai-based Aircel founder C. Sivasankaran had 'cooked up' the story about Mr Maran 'coercing' him to sell his stake in Aircel to Malaysia-based company Maxis in order to get a 'better price', CBI counsel K.K. Venugopal told the court.

This revelation before a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and K.S. Radhakrishanan came as a 'shocker', with the court observing 'this may be for some consideration', and ordered Mr Kumar to submit a sworn affidavit within a week to explain the 'reasons and circumstances' under which he had written directly to the CBI director while his petition was pending in the court.

Mr Kumar was also directed to explain the reason behind his publishing an article in a magazine giving 'clean chit' to Mr Maran before writing the letter to the CBI director.

The CBI may question Mr Maran again by the end of April to expedite its investigation.

CBI counsel K.K. Venugopal submitted that investigation against Mr Maran within the country had been completed but it was still continuing on letters rogatory sent to some foreign countries, including Singapore and Malaysia, where the main transactions had actually taken place.

Since two other petitions by - NGO, Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) and Pranajoy Ghua Thakurta - against Maran were there, Venugopal said he was only bringing to the notice of the court that should Kumar’s petition still survive as had tried to 'cut the basis of the entire complaint' by writing such a letter to CBI Director when the court is monitoring the probe.

"What is the credibility of the appeal (by Telecom Watchdog) and some applications filed by it in for probing the role of Maran," Venugopal asked.

In response to a counter query by the bench as what was CBI’s opinion about the other two petitioners, Venugopal said, "I have no complaint against CPIL, they are doing a very good job in the filed of public interest litigations and Thakurta is a very senior journalist of high reputation'.

"I just wanted to bring to the notice of the court that this was an attempt to 'subvert' the investigation. Earlier he (Kumar) was painting Maran as 'crook' and Sivasankaran as a 'victim' and now it is vise-versa. He is a person, who for unknown reasons has taken a complete about-turn," Venugopal said.

CPIL counsel Prashan Bhushan, who is also pursuing Telecom Watchdog’s case, said Kumar had 'not informed' him about all what he had done.

"I have no objection if an explanation is sought from him," he said.

Kumar along with the two other petitioners had sought CBI probe against Maran last year alleging that he had 'coerced' Sivasankaran to sell his shares in Aircel to Maxis in quid-pro-quo for investment of Rs 600 crore in Sun TV Direct.