New Delhi: Flagging what it labelled attempts by Tamil Nadu minister V. Senthil Balaji to delay trial court proceedings by dragging on the examination of a witness for three months, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) Wednesday moved the Supreme Court seeking cancellation of his bail.
The federal probe agency in its affidavit, a copy of which ThePrint has seen, cited Balaji’s influence as a minister in the DMK-led state government while submitting that the witness in question, a government forensic expert, did not appear before the trial court on two occasions.
In September last year, the Supreme Court granted bail to Balaji in ED’s case against him under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. The top court said there was no possibility of his trials, in either the money laundering case or the case relating to predicate offences under investigation by the Tamil Nadu police, concluding anytime soon. Balaji had already spent nearly 15 months behind bars before he was granted bail.
The ED arrested Balaji while he was minister for electricity, prohibition and excise in the M.K. Stalin-led Tamil Nadu government on 14 June, 2023 after 18 hours of questioning at the DMK leader’s Chennai residence.
The ED case stems from three FIRs registered by Chennai police’s Central Crime Branch, accusing Balaji of taking bribes when he was transport minister in the state government led by All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) from 2011 to 2016.
In December last year, the top court junked a plea seeking a review of Balaji’s bail order. A bench had at the time termed the Tamil Nadu government’s decision to re-appoint Balaji as a minister days after his release on bail as “terribly wrong”.
“It can’t be axiomatic that the moment a person is released he becomes a minister, there is something terribly wrong. Because there may be cases and cases where somebody is being framed. In the facts of the case, we will have to consider,” a bench of justices Abhay S. Oka and Augustine George Masih remarked.
The Tamil Nadu government re-inducted Balaji as a minister on 29 September last year and assigned him the same portfolios he held at the time of his arrest in June 2023.
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ED: Clear attempt to ‘delay trial’
In the petition filed before the Supreme Court, the ED documented the sequence of trial proceedings ongoing before a sessions court in Chennai in the money laundering case against Balaji. In the affidavit, the federal probe agency alleged that prosecution witness number 4, a forensic expert with the state government, failed to appear continuously for two hearings—first, on the day Balaji was granted bail, and then again on 30 September.
It took a non-bailable warrant and imposition of Rs 1,000 for the forensic expert to finally appear before the court on 4 October, the agency said. It added that reasons cited by the witness—hypertension and giddiness—was not “sufficient ground” to defer the examination process.
The ED also submitted that the defence counsel could not examine the forensic expert between 4 October last year and 27 January this year as they filed an adjournment application due to the change of a senior counsel and also sought a cloned copy of digital evidence to examine the prosecution witness further.
“After the attendance of PW-4 was secured, the counsels for Sh. V Senthil Balaji have deliberately failed to complete the cross examination of PW-4 for nearly three months on 04.10.2024, 29.10.2024, 07.11.2024, 15.11.2024, 22.11.2024, 29.11.2024, 09.12.2024, 16.12.2024 & 02.01.2025 with no end in sight,” the agency submitted in the affidavit.
“That the aforementioned facts unequivocally demonstrate Sh. V Senthil Balaji’s blatant disregard for the judicial process and his deliberate attempts to delay the trial. That despite this Hon’ble Court’s directive to expedite the trial, Sh. V Senthil Balaji has drawn out the cross examination of PW-4 on one pretext or another for nearly three months. This blatant disregard for the Supreme Court’s instructions is a clear attempt to procrastinate and delay the trial proceedings,” the agency submitted. It argued before the Supreme Court that the bail order be recalled since Balaji allegedly violated the terms of the bail granted to him.
“In the light of the foregoing, it is amply clear that Sh. V Senthil Balaji has violated the direction given by this Hon’ble Court by seeking adjournments on nonexistent or frivolous grounds or creating hurdles in the early disposal of the cases mentioned above,” the agency further argued.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)