The Enforcement Directorate (ED) informed a local court on Wednesday that Tamil Nadu Minister Senthil Balaji "misused" his office for illegal gratification and "engineered" jock racket scam in state transport corporations during 2014-15. Senthil Balaji was the Transport Minister during the said period. The ED also alleged that the Minister got kickbacks from candidates through his associates.
The ED called him the "prime suspect" in the case and said that an unaccounted cash deposit of Rs 1.60 crore was made in the bank accounts of the Minister and his wife as per the custody paper.
According to PTI, the ED in its submission said, "Balaji misused his office for illegal gratification and engineered a job racket scam in MTC/TNSTCs. The entire appointment process was made in a fraudulent and dishonest manner and only in accordance with the lists provided by Shanmugam, R V Ashok Kumar and M Karthikeyan, as per the directions of Balaji."
The four persons collected cash "on behalf of Balaji" for providing appointments in the state department but the candidates were not given jobs nor the money was returned to them.
To investigate these claims, the ED opened a money laundering investigation in September 2021. The complaint was based on three FIRs filed by Tamil Nadu police in 2018 and some in the subsequent years.
However, the recent action came after Supreme Court allowed an investigation into this case by the police as well as the ED on May 16.
The ED said they issued summons after raiding the premises of Balaji and his associates on Tuesday but he allegedly "refused to sign and receive" them. He also "shouted and yelled" at ED officials at his house.
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As a result, ED charged the minister of being "completely non-cooperative" during the proceedings and hence he was arrested around 1:30 am. If not arrested, Balaji could have "tampered and destroyed" the evidence, the agency, as per the report.