Tamil Nadu: Senthil Balaji’s Bail Plea Dismissed Once Again
Chennai: The bail petition of former Minister V Senthil Balaji, arrested last year by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a money laundering case reportedly involving Rs 67.74 crore, was dismissed by the Madras High Court on Wednesday for the second time in four months, putting a big question mark over the active participation of the DMK leader in the campaign for the coming Lok Sabha elections.
"If the petitioner is let out on bail in a case of this nature, it will send a wrong signal and it will be against larger public interest. Therefore, this Court holds that even under Section 439 Cr.PC, the petitioner is not entitled to be considered for enlargement on bail", Justice N Anand Venkatesh said.
The petitioner had not made out a case by satisfying this Court that there were reasonable grounds for believing that he was not guilty but since he had suffered incarceration for more than eight months, it would be more appropriate to direct the Principal Special Court in Chennai to dispose of the case within a period of three months, the judge said, directing the trial to be conducted on a day to day basis in accordance with the guidelines given by the Supreme Court in the Vinod Kumar Vs State of Punjab case.
The court was not able to agree with the petitioner's contention that since he had resigned his post as State Minister, the apprehension that he would tamper with the evidence and influence the witnesses did not subsist, the judge said.
Pointing out that the petitioner had resigned from the post of Minister without a portfolio just one day prior to the hearing of the present bail petition, Justice Venkatesh saidtThe fact that the accused continued to remain as a Minister for nearly eight months and that too without a portfolio when he was inside the jail, showed the tremendous influence of the petitioner and the importance that was given to him by the State Government.
Even if the petitioner had resigned as a minister, he continued to be an MLA belonging to the ruling party State and therefore, without any hesitation, "this Court holds that the petitioner continues to wield a lot of influence on the Government."
So, the witnesses who were mostly officials belonging to the Metropolitan Transport Corporation and the prospective job seekers who had paid the money, would be influenced and evidence tampered with, the judge said.
The past conduct of the petitioner, which had a lot of bearing in the case, showed that in the predicate offence, the complainant was made to compromise the dispute and it was revived only after the Supreme Court intervened, leading to the filing of the final report, the judge said.
The Court took into consideration the larger interest of the Public/State since the petitioner was involved in a cash-for-job scam by misusing his position as a Transport Minister, depriving genuine aspirants for the job of a level playing field, which led to the accommodation of persons who paid money in their place, the judge said.
Pointing out that the petitioner had not questioned the genuineness of the documents that formed the basis for the final report on the predicate offences, the judge said the ED had merely collected those documents that had been certified by the Special Court.
Therefore, this Court was not convinced that the ED had indulged in tampering with the electronic records or that such tampering had even taken place or any such thing had been done by it in the predicate offences, the judge said.
There had been a large-scale manipulation that showed that payments had been made by many job aspirants directly or through the associates to B Shanmugam and M Karthikeyan, who were the unofficial personal assistants of the petitioner at that time, the judge said.
If there was a prima facie material to show that the amount had been received by misusing the position of the petitioner as Transport Minister, it could be construed as proceeds of crime, the judge said, adding that the recorded statements of witnesses were a body of strong material that prima facie established the offence of money laundering against the petitioner.
The ED, which arrested Senthil Balaji on June 14. 2023, for alleged money laundering linked to a cash-for-jobs scam during his tenure as Transport Minister in the earlier AIADMK regime, filed a 3000 page charge-sheet on August 12, 2023.
His earlier bail petitions had been dismissed by a local court three times and the High Court on October 19.
