The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Sunday, 13 August, arrested the brother of Tamil Nadu minister V Senthil Balaji in a money-laundering case from Kochi in Kerala.
V Ashok Kumar was arrested by the ED after reportedly skipping several summonses. It may be noted that the ED on Saturday filed a chargesheet against Senthil Balaji as part of the ongoing money-laundering investigation against him.
Recently, the ED said in a statement that Ashok, his wife Nirmala, and mother-in-law P Lakshmi were sent multiple summonses to join the probe and to record their statements.
However, they were “yet to appear in person, demonstrating a lack of cooperation with the ongoing investigation”, said the probe agency.
This development comes almost after a week after the ED froze a 2.49-acre land at Karur belonging to Ashok’s wife Nirmala.
On Saturday, Senthil Balaji was sent to judicial remand till 25 August, after five days of questioning by the ED, following a Supreme Court order. He has been lodged in the Puzhal Central Jail.
Related: We have a duty to interrogate Senthil Balaji, ED tells SC
The case
The ED arrested Senthil Balaji on 14 June in a money-laundering case registered by the Central Crime Branch Police in Chennai.
He is allegedly involved in a cash-for-jobs scam during his previous stint as a transport minister in the J Jayalalitha Cabinet (2011-2015).
He was in the AIADMK then, and stands accused of taking cash in lieu of providing government jobs in the transport sector.
Many of those who paid money to Senthil Balaji and his associates landed jobs in the transport sector, according to the ED.
As the political scenario in the state changed after the demise of the then chief minister J Jayalalithaa in 2016, Balaji could not provide jobs to the others who had paid him.
These job aspirants complained to the Central Crime Branch in Chennai, based on which the FIR was filed. He joined the DMK in 2018.
After his arrest, the high court permitted Balaji to be shifted to a private hospital for heart surgery and restricted his interrogation by the ED in the hospital.
He was operated on for blockages in three coronary arteries at a local private hospital in Chennai.
Related: Tamil Nadu Minister Senthil Balaji to be in judicial custody till 25 August
Series of events
These are the series of events that led to the case against Senthil Balaji and members of his family:
- November 2014: The Tamil Nadu government’s Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) issued five advertisements calling for applications to fill up various posts, including drivers and conductors.
- December 2014: After the hiring procedure, a list of selected candidates was published. Following that, a complaint was filed by a person called Devasagayam against 10 individuals. The complaint alleged that his son was not selected for the job even though he paid ₹2.6 lakh for the post of a conductor. Nor did he get the refund, the complaint mentioned.
- March 2016: Another person, Gopi, filed a petition with the Madras High Court after the Commissioner of Police did not register his complaint. Gopi’s complaint was directed at Senthil Balaji’s brother Ashok and brother-in-law, Karthik. Gopi submitted that he paid ₹2.4 lakh to the duo to be employed as a conductor at the MTC.
- August 2018: Another complainant, K Arulmani, claimed that an amount of ₹40 lakh was paid to the minister’s Personal Assistant Shanmugam at the minister’s residence in the first week of January 2015.
Ashok under probe agencies’ scanner
Ashok has been under the scanner of the ED and the Income Tax (I-T) Department for quite some time.
The ED, in the last week of July, searched two private hospitals in Chennai that reportedly have business tie-ups with the friends of V Ashok Kumar, Balaji’s younger brother.
“We received a tip-off that Ashok was involved in a pharmaceutical business run by his friends. It was also learnt that Minister Balaji put pressure on both hospitals to procure medicines from a particular pharmaceutical company,” an ED source said.
“The hospitals procured medicines and we have found a few of their financial transactions with the pharmaceutical company. The transactions are being scrutinised,” the officer added.
The I-T Department had already issued a summons to Ashok Kumar for the third time, asking him to present himself before the department on 27 July.
It demanded an explanation based on the documents of financial transactions related to several concerns. The documents were seized during searches conducted last month. The ED, too, summoned Ashok Kumar.
The ED also issued a lookout circular against Ashok Kumar to prevent him from fleeing the country.
(With PTI inputs)
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