A Special Court trying cases relating to MPs and MLAs of Tamil Nadu on Friday extended the remand of DMK Minister V Senthil Balaji, arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) till August 28, 2023.
Special Judge Sivakumar, before whom Balaji was produced through video conferencing by the jail authorities, extended the minister’s remand to judicial custody till Monday.
Directing the jail authorities to produce Senthil Balaji physically before the court, the judge posted to August 28, further hearing of the case.
After several rounds of litigation before the courts up to the level of Supreme Court, the Enforcement Directorate had on August 7 taken custody of Balaji for five days and after the completion of the period, it had produced him before Principal Sessions Judge S Alli, who remanded him to judicial custody till August 25.
The ED had also filed a charge sheet running to about 3,000 pages before the PSJ on the same day.
The PSJ had on August 14 taken the charge sheet on file and transferred the case to the Special Court for the trial of cases relating to MPs and MLAs.
As the period of remand was over on Friday, the jail authorities produced Balaji before the Special Court, which extended his remand.
Balaji was arrested on June 14 in connection with a money laundering case linked to a cash-for-jobs scam when he was the Transport Minister during the earlier AIADMK regime.
