The Supreme court will hear on Wednesday (June 21) the Enforcement Directorate (ED) plea against Madras High Court order permitting the arrested Tamil Nadu minister V. Senthil Balaji to be shifted to a private hospital for a heart surgery and restricting his interrogation in the hospital.

A vacation bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice M.M. Sundreash posted the matter for hearing on Wednesday on a mentioning by the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta questioning the High Court order passed while hearing a habeas corpus plea by Senthil Balaji’s wife Megala.

Megala had moved the habeas corpus petition after ED arrested Senthil Balaji on June 14, 2023. Issuing notice to ED on the plea of alleged illegal detention of Senthil Balaji, the High court had posted the matter for hearing on June 22.

Megala had said that the ED officials did not follow the due procedures including intimating the grounds of arrest, under the Code of Criminal Procedure (Cr.PC).

Describing Senthil Balaji as an influential minister, the Solicitor General Mehta said that since he (Senthil Balaji) was in the custody of the Enforcement Directorate, the High court could not have entertained a habeas corpus petition.

Solicitor General said that it has been stated that habeas corpus was filed before Senthil Balaji was arrested by the ED. He said that no habeas corpus was maintainable after ED had arrested him.

Initially reluctant to entertain a plea against an interim order of the High Court, the vacation bench finally agreed to list the matter on Wednesday on persistence of the Solicitor General Mehta, who referred to the merits of the case to persuade the court to list the ED’s plea at the earliest.

The ED has arrested Senthil Balaji in connection with a money laundering case traceable to an alleged cash for job scam that took place when Senthil Balaji was Transport minister in the late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s government in 2015.

Senthil Balaji later crossed over to DMK in 2018. DMK came to power in May 2021.

Senthil Balaji – the Minister for Electricity and Prohibition and Excise – after his arrest was admitted to a government hospital in Chennai after he complained of chest pain. The High Court on June 15 allowed him to be shifted to a private hospital of his choice.

He was later taken from the State owned Multi Super Speciality Hospital to Kauvery Hospital at Alwarpet. Doctors attending to him have recommended bypass surgery.

The ED had arrested Balaji in connection with an Enforcement Case Information Register (ECIR) filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in 2021.

The ECIR was registered on the basis of three FIRs lodged against him by the local police in 2018 for his alleged involvement in a cash-for-job case when he was the transport minister in AIADMK government from 2011 to 2015.