Eight months after Tamil Nadu Minister V Senthil Balaji was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in an alleged money laundering case, on Monday he resigned from the M K Stalin Cabinet. Once a powerful member of the Cabinet, after his arrest, Stalin had retained him as Minister without portfolio while allocating his Electricity and Excise portfolios to two other colleagues.
However, his prolonged imprisonment and repeated rejection of bail application by judges, seem to have prompted Senthil Balaji to resign. The ED had argued that if let out on bail as a Minister he could influence witnesses in the case.
Recently, the Madras High Court while hearing his bail plea, questioned the propriety of Senthil Balaji continuing in the Cabinet as a Minister without portfolio despite having been imprisoned for several months.
Justice Anand Venkatesh had posed how a person could be allowed to continue in the Cabinet even after incarceration for so long when even the last grade employee of the State is deemed to have been suspended from service if he/she remains incarcerated for more than 48 hours in a criminal case.
