Senthilbalaji arrest: ED denies charge of illegal detention

CHENNAI: The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) has denied the charge of having illegally detained Minister V Senthil Balaji.

"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 (PMLA), 2002 and not detained as alleged by the petitioner, " said Karthik Dasari, Deputy Director and Investigating Officer, ED in the counter affidavit to a habeas corpus petition filed by Senthil Balaji's wife Megala.

"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. Left with no other option, I attempted to record his 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, we had to arrest him because otherwise he could destroy material evidence and material objects besides influencing the witnesses to frustrate the PMLA proceedings, " the IO said.

Further the ED said that the Minister had even challenged the summons sent to him in 2022 before the High Court and he was well aware of the PMLA proceedings pending against him for long and yet did not choose to cooperate with the investigating agency.

"The Minister was arrested by invoking Section 19 (1) of the PMLA, 2002 read with Rule 6 of the PMLA Rules, 2005. At the time of arrest, he was informed of the grounds of his arrest but he refused to acknowledge and sign. Therefore, the arrest memo was executed in the presence of two independent witnesses. We made phone calls to his brother Ashok Kumar and sister-in-law Nirmala at about 1.41 am to inform them about the arrest but they did not respond to the calls. Immediately, the information passed to his brother Ashok Kumar through a text message at 1.41 am on June 14. The arrest was intimated to his wife Megala, brother Ashok Kumar and his chartered accountant Sathish Kumar through e-mail at 8.12 am. Therefore the present HCP by his wife Megala to declare his arrest as illegal for alleged non compliance to the procedures, need not be entertained, " the ED said.