ED denies charge of illegal detention of T.N. Minister Senthilbalaji till his arrest on June 14

The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) has denied the charge of having illegally detained Minister V. Senthilbalaji from 7 a.m. on June 13 till his arrest at 1:39 a.m. on June 14. In a counter affidavit to a habeas corpus petition preferred by his wife Megala, the ED said, the Minister was just present during the search operation undertaken at his official residence in Chennai on June 13, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act of 2002 and not detained as alleged by the petitioner.

The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) has denied the charge of having illegally detained Minister V. Senthilbalaji from 7 a.m. on June 13 till his arrest at 1:39 a.m. on June 14.

In a counter affidavit to a habeas corpus petition preferred by his wife Megala, the ED said, the Minister was just present during the search operation undertaken at his official residence in Chennai on June 13, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act of 2002 and not detained as alleged by the petitioner.

Deputy Director Karthik Dasari, the investigating officer (IO) of the case, said, the Minister was served with summons under Section 50(2) of the PMLA after the completion of the search on June 13. But he refused to sign the acknowledgement and receive the summons.

“He started behaving in an intimidating manner, shouted and yelled at the officer that he is a sitting Minister in the State,” the counter affidavit filed through ED Special Public Prosecutor N. Ramesh read.

Left with no other option, the investigating officer attempted to record the Minister’s statement in the presence of two witnesses on June 14 but he did not respond to any of the questions posed and was completely non-cooperative.

As a last resort, the ED officials had to arrest the Minister because otherwise he could destroy material evidences and material objects besides influencing the witnesses to frustrate the PMLA proceedings, the IO said.

Further, recalling that the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) against the Minister was registered in 2021 and he was issued with summons in 2022, the ED said, the Minister had even challenged those summons before the High Court and therefore it could be safely concluded that he was well aware of the PMLA proceedings pending against him for long and yet did not choose to cooperate with the investigating agency.