INDIA. Mumbai: Directorate of Enforcement (ED) carried out searches in Karur in Tamil Nadu in connection with the “Cash for Jobs Scam” involving the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) on Wednesday.
The primary accused, V Senthil Balaji, former Tamil Nadu Transport Minister, was arrested on June 14 and is in judicial custody at the Puzhal central prison. He will be produced in Judicial Magistrate’s Court on August 12, Saturday.
The ED filed a case of money laundering in September 2021 to probe these allegations, based on three FIRs filed by the Central Crime Branch (CCB), Tamil Nadu police, Chennai, in 2018 and the FIRs filed by those who failed to get the promised jobs, according to the ED statement.
Former Tamil Nadu Transport Minister Senthil, together with his brother RV Ashok Kumar and Personal Assistants B Shanmugam and M Karthikeyan, provided jobs in exchange for cash. This led to jobs being awarded at the expense of deserving candidates.
During the ED investigation, it was revealed that a plot of land admeasuring 2.49 acres located at Salem Bypass Road, Andankovil, Karur, was acquired by P Lakshmi (Mother-in-Law of RV Ashok Kumar ) from one Anuradha Ramesh for Rs.10 lakh, as against the land’s value of over Rs 30 crore.
But it turned out that P Lakshmi had no reliable source of income. It was established that she had not sold her old jewellery in order to raise the Rs. 10 lakh needed to buy the land. She then gave her daughter Nirmala ( R V Ashok Kumar’s wife) that plot of land.
Anuradha Ramesh received the final payment necessary for the purchase of the land in cash, according to further inquiry. Anuradha Ramesh then utilised this money to buy a different plot of land. Considering these developments, the plot was placed under a freeze order in accordance with section 17(1-A) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA 2002).
Despite multiple summonses issued to RV Ashok Balaji, Nirmala, and P Lakshmi, they did not appear in person, demonstrating a lack of cooperation with the ongoing investigation, the ED statement added.
Background
The irregularities occurred in the state-run Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) and TNSTC in 2011-15 during the AIADMK government headed by the late J Jayalalithaa. The first complainant was filed by one Devasagayam, who claimed in October 2015 that he gave Rs.2.6 lakh to Palani, a bus conductor, who promised his son a job in the TNSTC. However, neither the job was given, nor the money returned.
Another man, Gopi, in his complaint in March 2016, claimed that he paid Rs.2.4 lakh to two individuals related to Senthil for a conductor’s job. Gopi later approached the high court, which directed the CCB to probe the case.
The inquiry report submitted in 2017 implicated 12 individuals, excluding Senthil and his relatives. In another development, a Transport Department employee V Ganesh Kumar alleged that Senthil and three others had asked him to collect Rs.95 lakh from job aspirants.
After Senthil became a minister in the DMK-led government in 2018, his personal assistant Shanmugam and another man R Sahayarajan, approached the victims with a compromise formula. However, an offer to compromise was viewed as an admission of bribery by the ED.
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