Chennai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday arrested Tamil Nadu minister and DMK leader V Senthil Balaji under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with an alleged cash for jobs scam in the state transport department, an action that triggered a political slugfest.
The case against 47-year-old Balaji, who is the first member of the M K Stalin Cabinet to be arrested by a law enforcement agency, and his aides relates to his tenure as the state transport minister in the AIADMK government during 2011-15.
After his formal arrest at around 1.30 am on Wednesday, Balaji, who is the minister for Electricity, Prohibition and Excise, complained of chest pain and was admitted to a government hospital in Chennai. He underwent a coronary angiogram and was advised bypass surgery at the “earliest”.
TV visuals showed Balaji feeling uneasy and crying while being brought to the hospital in a stretcher. He was arrested after a long session of questioning, official sources said.
A Chennai court later sent the minister to judicial custody till June 28 after which he sought permission to be shifted to a private hospital in Chennai for further treatment and also applied for interim bail.
The court reserved its orders including on the ED’s plea for police custody of Balaji, the DMK strongman from Karur. The ED called him the “prime suspect” in the case.
The arrest followed multi-city searches by the ED on Tuesday on the premises linked to Balaji in Tamil Nadu as part of the probe into money laundering. The move by the ED came after the Supreme Court issued an order on May 16 allowing investigations in the case by the police as well as the ED.
Chief Minister Stalin, who had slammed the ED raids against Balaji on Tuesday as “intimidation politics”, met his cabinet colleague at the Tamil Nadu Government Multi Super Speciality Hospital, Omandurar Estate.
Stalin, who is the DMK President, stepped up his attack on the BJP and charged the ED officials with “enacting a drama” in the name of inquiry and accused them of “physically and mentally troubling” Balaji.
“They had pressured him to the point of him suffering chest pain,” Stalin alleged in a statement.
TN BJP chief K Annamalai dismissed any charge of vindictive action by his party against the DMK and said the ED action was a culmination of a five-year probe into the cash for jobs scam.
BJP spokesperson Syed Zafar Islam said Balaji’s arrest is based on evidence and follows the Supreme Court’s critical observation about the case involving the DMK leader.
The Opposition including the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) condemned Balaji’s arrest and alleged that it was “political harassment and vendetta” by the Modi government.
“Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge condemns the late-night arrest of Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister Shri V. Senthil Balaji by the ED,” the Congress said in a statement.
“This is nothing but political harassment and vendetta by the Modi government against those opposed to it. None of us in the Opposition will be intimidated by such brazen moves.”
The ED informed Sessions Court Principal Judge S Alli that Balaji allegedly “misused” his office for illegal gratification and “engineered” a job racket scam in the state transport undertakings during 2014-15 with purported kickbacks paid by candidates through his associates. The irregularities occurred in state-run Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) and Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC).
The federal probe agency also stated in its custody papers that alleged unaccounted cash deposits worth about Rs 1.60 crore were made in the bank accounts of Balaji and his wife.
The DMK claimed arrest-related procedures were not followed properly in the matter, which the ED denied.
State Minister P K Sekar Babu claimed there were “symptoms” that Balaji was “tortured”.
“He is in the ICU. He was in an unconscious state and did not respond when we called him by his name. He is under observation…there is a swelling near his ear. Doctors say there is variation in his ECG (electrocardiogram)… these are symptoms of torture,” Babu told reporters.
Balaji “underwent Coronary Angiogram at 10.40 am” today, a medical bulletin issued by the Director of the Tamil Nadu Government Multi Super Speciality Hospital, Omandurar Estate, said.
“Coronory Angiogram revealed triple vessel disease, for which CABG (Coronary artery bypass graft) – Bypass Surgery is advised at the earliest,” it said.
The constituents of the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) announced a massive public meeting in Coimbatore on Friday to protest against the BJP over the issue.
A joint statement from SPA leaders including TNCC president K S Alagiri and state secretaries of CPI and CPI (M), R Mutharasan and K Balakrishnan, respectively and VCK founder Thol Thirumavalavan slammed the “anti-people” BJP-led NDA and said it has not done anything for the people in the last nine years in office.
The ED said after raiding the premises of Balaji and his associates on Tuesday, it issued him a summons to appear before it for questioning but he allegedly “refused to sign and receive” them.
It claimed Balaji “shouted and yelled” at the agency officials present at his house and the agency then attempted to record his statement there in the presence of two witnesses.
The agency charged the minister of being “completely non-cooperative” during the proceedings and hence he was arrested around 1:30 am. It said the arrest was executed in the presence of two independent witnesses as the minister “refused” to sign the arrest memo.
If not arrested, Balaji could have “tampered and destroyed” the evidence, the agency said.
“Bank statement analysis of key accused revealed that there have been cash deposits of Rs 1.34 crore in the bank accounts of prime suspect V Senthil Balaji and Rs 29.55 lakh in his wife S Meghala’s account. These cash deposits are huge compared to their incomes disclosed in ITRs (income tax returns),” the ED alleged.
It informed the court that “the statements given by some accused/victims and witnesses clearly point out the offence of money laundering”.
There was neither justification nor evidence to show that the source of huge cash deposits is from his genuine income,” the ED said.
The allegations state that candidates who paid the money neither got appointment orders nor their money back, as promised by Balaji and the three others.
The ED filed a case of money laundering in 2021 to probe these allegations and its complaint is based on three Tamil Nadu Police FIRs filed during 2018 and some later years.
PTI