CHENNAI: The State government has filed two petitions in the Madras High Court seeking to vacate the interim stay on further police action against Electricity Minister V Senthil Balaji in job-racket cases. Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) moved an impleadment petition in these cases.
When the matters came up before Justice V Sivagnanam on Thursday, Additional Public Prosecutor (APP) E Raj Thilak submitted that, as per a recent Supreme Court order, two vacate-stay petitions had been filed in the court for removing the stay on police proceedings in the cases against the minister.
Meanwhile, the court hall witnessed heated arguments between ED counsel N Ramesh and a battery of senior counsels, including PS Raman, Sriram Panchu and NL Raja, representing Senthil Balaji.
The ED counsel said the Central agency has to be impleaded as there were chances for suppression of facts as the matters were between the government and a minister.
Quoting a recent Supreme Court order, he said the interim stay granted against proceeding the investigation should be lifted. Only then can the ED go ahead with its own investigation because a division bench has already restrained it from proceeding further.
However, the senior counsel vehemently opposed impleading the Central agency.
Directing Senthil Balaji to file a counter-affidavit to ED's impleadment petition, the judge posted the matter to October 18.
It may be noted that the Central Crime Branch (CCB) of Chennai city police registered three FIRs against Senthil Balaji and his supporters over a job racket that allegedly took place when he was minister for transport during 2011-15. The high court quashed one FIR while two were pending due to interim stay.
In the meantime, the Supreme Court ruled against quashing the FIR. Following the CCB FIRs, the ED registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).