The Supreme Court has dismissed a plea seeking review of an order granting bail to Tamil Nadu minister V Senthil Balaji in a money laundering case related to a cash-for-jobs scam.
A bench of justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih also dismissed a prayer for conducting open hearing on the review petition.
“Application seeking oral hearing of the review petition is rejected. The review petition seeks review of judgment and order dated September 26, 2024. Having gone through the review petition and the connected papers, we do not find any ground to review the order sought to be reviewed. There is no error apparent on the face of the record,” the bench said in its order passed on December 17, and uploaded on the top court website on Saturday.
The bench noted that an application for recall of the same order is pending and is being heard by the court.
The review petition was filed by one of the complainants in the case.
On Friday, while hearing a petition for the recall of the September 26 order, the bench observed it was “terribly wrong” to appoint Balaji as a minister in the Tamil Nadu government days after he was granted bail in the case.
It had said a large number of witnesses were public officials and sought response of the state government on the pending cases against Mr Balaji.
“It can’t be axiomatic that the moment a person is released he becomes a minister, there is something terribly wrong. Because there maybe cases and cases where somebody is being framed. In the facts of the case we will have to consider,” the bench had remarked.
On September 26, the top court granted bail to DMK strongman Balaji, in the money laundering case after over 15 months, noting there was no possibility of the completion of trial in the near future.
Senthil Balaji, 48, was sworn-in as a minister by Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi on September 29 and was assigned the same key portfolios — electricity, non-conventional energy development, prohibition and excise — that he held previously in the Chief Minister M K Stalin cabinet.
The ED had arrested Mr Balaji, representing Karur assembly constituency, on June 14, 2023, in the case, when he was the transport minister during the previous AIADMK regime between 2011 and 2015.
On February 13, the TN Governor accepted Mr Balaji’s resignation from the council of ministers. The top court reprieve on September 26, ended his 471-day incarceration.
On September 2, the top court refused to appoint a special public prosecutor for the trial of the case involving Balaji.
The top court had further underscored the prosecutors dealing with cases of MPs and MLAs were aware of the nature of their responsibilities as these cases were being monitored by the top court.
The Enforcement Directorate had filed a case of money laundering in July 2021 to probe the allegations after three FIRs were registered by the Tamil Nadu police in 2018 and on the basis of complaints by those aggrieved of the alleged scam.
The agency’s chargesheet claimed the entire recruitment process in the Tamil Nadu transport department during the tenure of Balaji as minister was turned into a “corrupt chiefdom”, and the scam was executed under his authority.
Being a public servant, Mr Balaji “misused” his official capacity as the then transport minister and obtained pecuniary benefits by corrupt and illegal means and directly acquired the proceeds of crime that were generated out of a criminal activity related to a scheduled offence, the agency alleged.
