Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) chief Senthil Balaji was granted bail by the Supreme Courtroom on Thursday (September 26), greater than a 12 months after his arrest.
Balaji was arrested in June final 12 months in a cash-for-jobs rip-off. He was then serving because the minister for electrical energy and prohibition and excise within the MK Stalin-led Tamil Nadu authorities.
Stalin described the Supreme Courtroom’s resolution as “a overcome a protracted political conspiracy designed to crush his [Balaji’s] spirit”. His bail plea had been rejected a number of occasions by each the district periods court docket and the Madras Excessive Courtroom.
The case dates again to Balaji’s time period as transport minister beneath the 2011-16 AIADMK authorities. A “compromise” later struck by a number of the accused with a number of the victims compounded his troubles.
From commercials to allegations
In November 2014, the state-run Metropolitan Transport Company introduced a recruitment drive by 5 separate commercials. 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 commercials.
ஆருயிர் சகோதரர் @V_Senthilbalaji அவர்களுக்கு 471 நாட்களுக்குப் பிறகு, உச்ச நீதிமன்றத்தால் பிணை கிடைத்திருக்கிறது.
அமலாக்கத் துறையானது, அரசியல் எதிரிகளை ஒடுக்கும் துறையாக மாற்றப்பட்ட தற்போதைய சூழலில், அதற்கு உச்சநீதிமன்றம் ஒன்றே விடியலாக இருக்கிறது.
எமர்ஜென்சி காலத்தில் கூட…
— M.Ok.Stalin (@mkstalin) September 26, 2024
A person named Devasagayam lodged the primary grievance in October 2015, claiming he had given Rs 2.60 lakh to a conductor, Palani, to safe his son’s job within the Transport Company. His son by no means bought the job and his cash was by no means returned, he claimed. This grievance didn’t implicate Balaji, the then transport minister.
In March 2016, a second particular person, Gopi, filed an identical grievance. He alleged he had paid Rs 2.40 lakh to 2 people associated to minister Balaji, for a conductor job he by no means acquired. Claiming police inaction, Gopi took his case to the Madras Excessive Courtroom, asking for his grievance to be registered and investigated.
Roadblocks and authorized wrangling
The Excessive Courtroom initially dismissed Gopi’s case and integrated his grievance into the sooner case filed by Devasagayam. Nevertheless, Gopi challenged this, arguing that Devasagayam’s case didn’t title the minister. Gopi’s demand was for an investigation extending past lower-rank officers and reaching as much as the ministerial degree.
Taking cognizance of Gopi’s plea, the HC ordered the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Central Crime Department, to probe past the decrease ranks. Nevertheless, the ultimate police report in 2017 implicated solely the 12 people talked about in Devasagayam’s grievance, excluding the minister and his kinfolk. Additionally, it didn’t invoke the stringent Prevention of Corruption Act.
Concurrently, extra complaints surfaced. V Ganesh Kumar, an worker of the Transport Division, alleged in 2017 that Balaji and three others had instructed him to gather Rs 95 lakh from job aspirants. These people by no means bought their jobs and the cash was by no means refunded, he claimed. A case was filed in 2018, however once more, it targeted on legal offences, omitting prices of corruption.
The subsequent 12 months, one Ok Arulmani filed an identical grievance, claiming that Rs 40 lakh had been collected from his associates, ostensibly for employment alternatives, and paid to the minister’s private assistant. But once more, the costs invoked failed to deal with the allegations of corruption.
The ED steps in
The absence of corruption prices in all official investigations led to 1 extra petition, calling for a radical investigation.
In the meantime, Balaji’s political fortunes fluctuated. Following Jayalalithaa’s demise in 2016, Balaji sided with VK Sasikala’s faction in the course of the ensuing AIADMK revolt. After being ousted from the AIADMK in 2017 together with the Sasikala faction and backing her nephew TTV Dhinakaran, Balaji joined the DMK in 2018, subsequently profitable a seat in his native Karur and gaining a ministerial place within the new DMK cupboard in 2021.
Following Balaji’s rise, the minister’s private assistant Shanmugam and one other accused R Sahayarajan sought to quash the legal instances towards them, claiming that they had arrived at a “compromise” with the victims. The Excessive Courtroom complied with their request in a single case. Nevertheless, this “compromise”, seen as an admission of bribery, proved to be a double-edged sword, attracting the eye of the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
New authorized proceedings
In direction of the top of 2021, the ED started to dig into the case. When it sought paperwork associated to the assorted instances, the Excessive Courtroom permitted the company to examine however not copy unmarked paperwork, a call subsequently challenged. Moreover, the dismissal of the case based mostly on the “compromise” was additionally contested by an unsuccessful job candidate and an NGO, the Anti-Corruption Motion.
This gave solution to a slew of latest authorized proceedings, with the Excessive Courtroom ordering a re-investigation of the case and the ED issuing summons to the accused. After the HC quashed these summons, the matter went to the Supreme Courtroom. The SC granted the ED the authority to proceed with their investigation and examine associated paperwork. The court docket additionally dismissed Balaji’s software for a Particular Investigation Workforce.
That is an up to date model of an explainer revealed final 12 months.