NEW DELHI/ CHENNAI: The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday said it found “huge cash deposits” in the bank account of arrested Tamil Nadu minister V Senthil Balaji and his wife. The statement from the agency comes days after filing a chargesheet against the DMK leader in a money laundering investigation linked to ‘cash for jobs scam’ in the state’s transport department during the previous AIADMK regime.
The agency alleged that Balaji “abused” his official position as transport minister during the previous AIADMK regime along with his brother RV Ashok Kumar and personal assistants B Shanmugam and M Karthikeyan and “entered into a criminal conspiracy” with the then managing directors of state transport undertakings and other officers of transport corporations.
It claimed the accused obtained “illegal gratification” from candidates to recruit them as drivers, conductors, junior tradesmen, junior assistants, junior engineers and assistant engineers in transport corporations. “ED has collected incriminating evidence indicating the utilisation of proceeds of crime and establishing the nexus and modus operandi of the ‘cash for jobs scam’,” the ED alleged.
It said Balaji was confronted with “incriminating evidence but he failed to rebut the same and offer any plausible explanation, and instead, he remained non-cooperative and evasive during investigation proceedings”. The prosecution complaint, filed under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), was submitted by the agency on August 12 before a special court in Chennai and it took cognisance of the chargesheet on Wednesday, it said in a statement.
While the case was earlier with a principal sessions court, it has been transferred to the special court for the trial of cases relating to MP/MLAs. The nearly 3,000-page chargesheet includes more than 2,000 pages of annexures and 168-170 pages of operational documents. Balaji, lodged in the Puzhal jail, continues to be a minister without portfolio in Chief Minister M K Stalin’s Cabinet after he was arrested by the ED on June 14 in this money laundering case.