Tamil Nadu minister Senthil Balaji shifted from private hospital to Puzhal jail
CHENNAI: Minister V Senthil Balaji, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on June 14 in connection with a cash-for-jobs scam under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, has been shifted from a private hospital to the Puzhal prison on Monday. He was recuperating at the hospital after heart surgery.
Prison officials escorted Senthil Balaji in an ambulance to the Puzhal prison from Kauvery Hospital. He reached the prison around 6 pm. Prison sources said Balaji has been admitted to a separate ward inside the prison hospital as per doctors’ advice.
Balaji has been given ‘A’ class facility inside the prison, which is usually reserved for ministers and senior bureaucrats. ‘A’ class prisoners will get a separate room, cot, table, chair, mosquito net, mattress and air cooler if permitted by the officers. As per the revised food plan for prisoners, A-class prisoners will get separate food.
Senthil Balaji now placed under the security of jail authorities
It is not clear when the ED would seek his custody and whether he would be taken to Delhi. The Madras High Court last Friday upheld the ED’s right to take Balaji into custody. The verdict by a third HC judge in the case came during the hearing of a habeas corpus plea filed by Senthil Balaji’s wife, Megala.
The plea claimed that the arrest of the former electricity minister by the ED was illegal. Though Balaji was given custody till June 23 by principal sessions judge S Alli with conditions, the ED did not take him into custody due to his health condition. Assigned prisoner number 001440, the minister is now placed under the security of jail authorities.
Senthil Balaji was the transport minister in the AIADMK government, led by the late J Jayalalithaa, between 2011 and 2015. Complaints were filed against him for allegedly receiving bribes from candidates for driver and conductor jobs in transport corporations. Balaji was arrested after a bench of the Supreme Court on May 16 refused to discharge Balaji in the cash-for-jobs scam and set aside a 2022 Madras HC verdict ordering a fresh investigation against the minister and others.