Tamil Nadu Minister V Senthil Balaji filed a bail plea in a Chennai court on Wednesday. The Minister without portfolio was detained by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case last year. The bail petition was presented before Principal Sessions Judge S Alli and is scheduled for further hearing on January 8.
The court scheduled the case for January 8, as the counsel for the Enforcement Directorate (ED), N Ramesh, requested additional time to submit a counter affidavit.
In his petition, the DMK leader contended that the Enforcement Directorate faced challenges in identifying, and is incapable of identifying, the sources of income deemed as ill-gotten. These sources either remain unavailable or the petitioner's only source of income is the one that has been disclosed.
The petitioner argued that lacking valid documentation, the agency could not have proceeded with the alleged investigation under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The ED, however, claimed to have reason to believe that the mentioned sources of income were purportedly acquired through an appointment scam.
The petitioner asserted that every transaction undertaken was a result of a legitimate and reasoned source of income, duly declared in the financial years. Consequently, these funds could not be considered ill-gotten, nor could the source be deemed illegitimate.
Based on the reasons provided and the evidence of the petitioner's income, it was contended that there were substantial grounds to believe that the ED's case was unlawful and illegal.
On June 14, ED arrested Balaji in connection with a money laundering case linked to a cash-for-jobs scam when he was the Transport Minister during an earlier AIADMK regime.
The ED had in August 2023, filed a charge sheet, running to 3,000 pages against Minister Balaji.