ED arrests Tamil Nadu minister V Senthil Balaji: The politics, job ...

When Tamil Nadu’s Minister of Electricity, Prohibition and Excise, V Senthil Balaji, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the wee hours of Wednesday (June 14), it signalled the first major power move by Delhi since DMK took the reins of Tamil Nadu in 2021. The controversial arrest is part of an unfolding investigation into a murky job racket scandal, dating back to Balaji’s term as transport minister under the 2011-16 AIADMK government.

Early on Wednesday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin was quick to condemn the arrest, slamming the raid. He said last evening that raids targeting a minister’s chamber in the Tamil Nadu state secretariat was an unprecedented move. Stalin also met Balaji on Wednesday, at a government hospital in Chennai, after he complained of chest discomfort some time after the arrest.

விசாரணைக்கு முழு ஒத்துழைப்பு தருகிறேன் என்று சொன்ன பிறகும் அமைச்சர் செந்தில் பாலாஜிக்கு நெஞ்சு வலி ஏற்படும் வகையில் சித்ரவதை கொடுத்த அமலாக்கத்துறையின் நோக்கம் என்ன?

What made Balaji’s position weaker in the case was the declaration by the accused of a “compromise” with the victims, which was interpreted as an indirect admission of guilt, substantiating the corruption and bribery allegations.

The story behind the arrest: From advertisements to allegations

The case goes back to November 2014, when the state-run Metropolitan Transport Corporation announced a recruitment drive through five separate advertisements. They aimed to fill positions for 746 drivers, 610 conductors, 261 junior tradesmen, 13 junior engineers, and 40 assistant engineers. The allegations of corruption emerged following these recruitment advertisements.

A man named Devasagayam lodged the first complaint in October 2015, claiming he had given Rs 2.60 lakhs to a conductor, Palani, to secure his son’s employment in the Transport Corporation. His son never got the job, and his money was never returned. Significantly, the complaint didn’t implicate the then Transport minister Balaji.

#WATCH | Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister V Senthil Balaji breaks down as ED officials took him into custody in connection with a money laundering case and brought him to Omandurar Government in Chennai for medical examination pic.twitter.com/aATSM9DQpu

— ANI (@ANI) June 13, 2023

In March 2016, a second individual, Gopi, filed a similar complaint. He alleged he had paid Rs. 2.40 lakhs to two individuals, supposedly related to minister Balaji, for a conductor job he never received. Due to the apparent police inaction, Gopi took his case to the Madras High Court, advocating for his complaint to be registered and investigated.

Roadblocks and legal wrangling

The High Court initially dismissed Gopi’s case and incorporated his complaint into the earlier case filed by Devasagayam. However, Gopi challenged this, arguing that Devasagayam’s case did not implicate the minister and that he was manipulated by the accused. Gopi’s demand was an investigation extending beyond the lower-rank officers and reaching up to the ministerial level.

Taking cognisance of Gopi’s plea, the HC ordered the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Central Crime Branch, to probe beyond the lower ranks. However, the final police report in 2017 implicated only the 12 individuals mentioned in Devasagayam’s complaint, excluding the minister and his relatives. It also omitted to charge these individuals under the Prevention of Corruption Act, further diluting the potential gravity of their offences.

Simultaneously, more complaints surfaced. V Ganesh Kumar, an employee of the Transport Department, alleged in 2017 that Balaji and three others had instructed him to collect Rs. 95 lakhs from job aspirants. These individuals never got their jobs, and the money was never refunded. A case was filed in 2018, but it again focused on criminal offences, omitting charges of corruption.

The next year, K Arulmani filed a similar complaint, claiming that Rs 40 lakhs had been collected from his friends, ostensibly for employment opportunities, and paid to the minister’s personal assistant. Yet again, the charges brought forth failed to address the allegations of corruption.

The ED Steps In

Despite mounting allegations against Balaji, the absence of corruption charges in all official investigations led to one more petition calling for a more thorough investigation.

Meanwhile, Balaji’s political fortunes fluctuated. Following Jayalalithaa’s death in 2016, Balaji sided with her aide V K Sasikala’s faction during the ensuing AIADMK revolt for leadership. After being ousted from the AIADMK in 2017, along with Sasikala fraction, and backing her nephew TTV Dhinakaran during a crisis period, Balaji joined the DMK in 2018. He won a seat in his native Karur and gained a ministerial position in the new DMK cabinet in 2021 after the State Assembly elections.

Emboldened by Balaji’s rise, two individuals, including the minister’s personal assistant Shanmugam, and R Sahayarajan, sought to quash the criminal cases against them, citing a “compromise” with the victims. The High Court complied with their request for one case. However, this so-called compromise, seen as an admission of bribery, proved to be a double-edged sword, attracting the attention of the ED.

A turn of events

Towards the end of 2021, the ED began to dig into the case. When it sought documents related to the various cases, the High Court permitted the ED to inspect but not to copy unmarked documents, a decision subsequently challenged. Furthermore, the dismissal of the case based on the “compromise” was also contested by an unsuccessful job candidate and an NGO called Anti-Corruption Movement.

This gave way to a slew of new legal proceedings, with the High Court ordering a re-investigation of the case and the ED issuing summons to the accused. But HC had quashed these summons and the matter was taken before the Supreme Court, where the court granted the ED the authority to continue their investigation and inspect related documents. Notably, the court also dismissed Balaji’s application for a Special Investigation Team.

The “Compromise” problem

The Supreme Court noted that the “compromise” wasn’t just between the complainant and the accused; it represented a compromise of justice, fair play, and the fundamental principles of criminal jurisprudence.

The court questioned the credibility of the investigation, given the failure to include offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act from 2015 to 2021. The court refuted the idea of the charges against Balaji as being political vendetta, suggesting that Balaji’s power and position shielded him from prosecution during his tenure.