CHENNAI: The Enforcement Directorate has written directly to the chief secretary, seeking prosecution sanction against current MLA and former minister V Senthil Balaji in connection with the cash for jobs scam. The letter comes after a year-long procedural back-and-forth between the agency, the governor’s office and the state government.
In its letter dated May 15, 2026, the ED said it had filed a prosecution complaint before the special court (PMLA) in Chennai on August 12, 2023, arraigning Balaji as accused no. 1 for offences under Sections 3 and 4 of the PMLA. The court took cognisance of the complaint on August 14, 2023.
The ED alleged during his tenure as transport minister between 2011 and 2016, Balaji orchestrated a systematic bribe-collection racket through his brother RV Ashok Kumar and personal assistants B Shanmugam and M Karthikeyan.
The agency said the former minister used his official residence and staff to monitor the “job sale” process and issued direct instructions to STU managing directors to appoint candidates from his lists, bypassing merit and reservation.
The ED had originally routed its prosecution sanction request through the governor’s office in May 2025. The governor forwarded it to the chief secretary on September 11, 2025. The chief secretary returned it in October 2025 on what the ED called “trivial grounds” - insisting the agency approach the state government directly. The governor’s office then returned the letter to ED in February 2026, asking it to do exactly that.
The ED invoked a November 2024 SC ruling in Directorate of Enforcement vs Bibhu Prasad Acharya, which held prosecution sanction under Section 218 of BNSS is required even for PMLA cases involving public servants.