New Delhi: A Chennai court on Thursday rejected arrested DMK minister V. Senthil Balaji’s plea seeking the dismissal of his 15-day remand, and denied him interim bail.
The power, prohibition and excise minister was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) late Tuesday in a money-laundering probe and was sent to judicial custody till 28 June.
Before issuing the order, the Principal Judge of the Sessions Court, S. Alli, visited Balaji, 47, in the hospital where he underwent an angioplasty Wednesday. The doctors advised an immediate bypass surgery.
Balaji has been permitted to stay in the hospital for treatment until further notice.
The minister was taken to a government hospital for a medical check-up after his arrest when he complained of chest pain.
His arrest came after nearly 18 hours of questioning about the cash-for-jobs scam when he was an AIADMK minister between 2011 and 2015.
DMK minister P.K. Sekar Babu has claimed that there were signs that Balaji was tortured.
As Balaji was being transported to the hospital, visuals showed him weeping from pain.
Babu told reporters: “He is in the intensive care unit. He was in a state of unconsciousness and did not respond to his name being called. There is a swelling near his ear that is under observation. Doctors say his ECG (electrocardiogram) shows variations; these are symptoms of torture.”
In the aftermath of the arrest by a central agency, the Tamil Nadu government revoked the general consent previously granted to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct investigations within the state without prior authorisation.
The government has released a communique saying that several states, including West Bengal, Rajasthan, Kerala, Mizoram, Punjab, and Telangana, have already withdrawn their consent to CBI probes.
This move has significant implications for the CBI’s ability to conduct investigations in these states. As per Section 6 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946, the CBI is required to obtain permission from the state government before initiating an investigation into any case within the state.
Slamming the BJP for “anti-people, anti-democratic, vendetta politics”, the ruling DMK and its allies have also planned a public meeting in Coimbatore on Friday to condemn such “cheap tactics”.
In a joint statement, the political parties said: “BJP’s vendetta politics has reached Tamil Nadu too. BJP is aware that they cannot win in Tamil Nadu. Hence, they have adopted cheap tactics here. The ED searches at the secretariat reveal the ‘arrogance’ of BJP. Are they threatening us? We will not be cowed down by such tactics”
Before his arrest, the ED had searched Balaji’s home and even his office at the state secretariat on Tuesday.
Political slugfest
Meanwhile, opposition AIADMK’s general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami has demanded Balaji’s resignation on moral grounds, citing the searches “as a disgrace to Tamil Nadu”.
“The ED searches are based on a recent order of the Supreme Court. If he had cooperated as promised earlier, the problem would not have risen at all,” he said.
The BJP Wednesday accused Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin of doublespeak, citing the DMK’s earlier claims that V. Senthil Balaji – when in AIADMK — was corrupt, but was now defending his own minister. Balaji joined the DMK in 2018.
Syed Zafar Islam, a spokesman for the BJP, stated at a press conference that the action against the state minister was based on evidence and the Supreme Court’s observations.
“As opposition leader, M.K. Stalin had gone after Balaji but ‘compromised’ when the accused joined the DMK. In power, the DMK leader then dropped all charges,” he alleged.
Also read: Tamil Nadu minister Senthil Balaji cries after arrest, BJP calls it drama, ‘screenplay by DMK’