The Supreme Court will take up on Wednesday the Enforcement Directorate’s appeal against a Madras High Court order allowing jailed Tamil Nadu minister V. Senthil Balaji to be shifted to a private hospital for treatment.
A bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice M.M. Sundresh listed the matter for hearing on Wednesday after the ED submitted that Balaji was an “influential minister” and shifting him could hamper his interrogation.
“He is an influential minister. The Madras High Court has allowed his transfer to a private hospital,” solicitor-general Tushar Mehta said during the morning mentioning time while seeking an urgent listing of the ED’s appeal.
The Tamil Nadu electricity, prohibition and excise minister was arrested by the ED on June 14 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in an alleged cash-for-jobs scam that took place when he was the transport minister in an AIADMK government led by late J. Jayalalithaa.
However, after a habeas corpus petition filed by Balaji’s wife Megala, the high court on June 15 issued a notice to the ED and directed that Balaji be shifted to a private hospital for treatment of a heart ailment.
The high court had posted the matter for further hearing to June 22 but the ED chose to appeal against the directive.
Mehta told the bench that the high court should not have entertained the habeas corpus petition as there is a catena of Supreme Court judgments that says such a petition would not lie before the court once a person is remanded into police or judicial custody.
