A vacation bench posted the matter for hearing on 21 June on a mention by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta questioning the high court order.
Published Jun 19, 2023 | 3:13 PM ⚊ Updated Jun 19, 2023 | 3:13 PM
The Enforcement Directorate arrested V Senthil Balaji on 14 June.
The game of cat and mouse being played in court between arrested Tamil Nadu Minister V Senthil Balaji and the Enforcement Directorate, reached the Supreme Court on Monday, 19 June.
The apex court said on Monday that it would hear on Wednesday, 21 June, the ED’s plea against the Madras High Court order permitting Senthil Balaji to be shifted to a private hospital for heart surgery, and restricting his interrogation in the hospital.
A vacation bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice MM Sundresh posted the matter for hearing on Wednesday on a mention by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta questioning the high court order.
The high court had passed the interim order while hearing the habeas corpus petition moved by Senthil Balaji’s wife.
Issuing notice to ED on the plea of alleged illegal detention of Senthil Balaji, the high court had posted the matter for hearing on 22 June.
Describing Senthil Balaji as an influential minister, the solicitor general said that since he (Senthil Balaji) was in the custody of the ED, the high court could not have entertained a habeas corpus petition.
The solicitor general said that it has been stated that the habeas corpus was filed before Senthil Balaji was arrested by the ED, adding that no habeas corpus was maintainable after ED had arrested him.
Initially reluctant to entertain a plea against an interim order of the high court, the vacation bench finally agreed to list the matter on Wednesday on the persistence of the Solicitor General Mehta, who referred to the merits of the case to persuade the court to list the ED’s plea at the earliest.
The ED arrested Balaji in the small hours of 14 June, after a 17-hour-long search conducted at places connected to him, including his office in the Secretariat, purportedly in connection with the cash-for-jobs case registered in 2015.
After he complained of chest pain following the arrest, he was admitted to the Government Multi Super Specialty Hospital (GMSSH) at Omandurar Estate in Chennai.
The doctors advised Senthil Balaji to undergo bypass surgery after the angiogram revealed three blocks in his blood vessels.
Principal Sessions Judge S Alli visited GMSSH and remanded Balaji in judicial custody till 28 June.
Passing orders on a Habeas Corpus petition filed by Balaji’s wife Megala, a Division Bench of the Madras High Court — comprising Justices J Nisha Banu and D Bharatha Chakravarthy — directed the minister be shifted to the private hospital at his own cost, overruling objections by the ED.
The court on 15 June directed the Prison Department to shift him to Chennai’s Kauvery Hospital for further treatment.
The judges, however, turned down a request by the ED that Balaji be shifted to the private hospital only after an assessment by doctors from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi.
The case against Balaji dates back to November 2014, when the Metropolitan Transport Corporation advertised a recruitment drive to fill up various vacancies. Soon, allegations of corruption surfaced.
Balaji was then the transport minister in the AIADMK government. He would join the DMK only in 2018.
The first complainant was one Devasagayam, who claimed in October 2015 that he gave ₹2.6 lakh to Palani, a bus conductor, who promised his son a job in the transport corporation.
Devasagayam claimed the conductor did not fulfil the promise nor returned his money. However, Balaji’s name did not figure in the complaint.
Balaji came into the picture when another man, Gopi, filed a similar complaint in March 2016.
The complainant said he had paid ₹2.40 lakh to two individuals, reportedly related to Balaji, for a conductor job. Gopi later approached the high court, accusing the police of inaction.
The court ordered the Crime Branch Assistant Commissioner to probe the case. The probe report, however, implicated only the 12 individuals mentioned in Devasagayam’s complaint. The report, submitted in 2017, excluded the minister and his relatives.
Meanwhile, more people came up with complaints. Transport Department employee V Ganesh Kumar alleged that the transport minister and three others had directed him to collect ₹95 lakh from job aspirants.
A similar complaint was lodged by another man, K Arulmani. He alleged that ₹40 lakh collected from his friends was paid to Balaji’s personal assistant.
Two years after AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa died in 2016, Balaji joined the DMK. He won the assembly election from Karur and was inducted into the Stalin cabinet.
After he became a minister in the DMK-led government, his personal assistant Shanmugam and another man, R Sahayarajan, approached the victims with a compromise formula. However, the compromise move was seen as an admission of bribery, which garnered the ED’s attention
