ED raids another TN minister, CM Stalin says election campaign

The Enforcement Directorate on Monday conducted searches at the premises of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader and Tamil Nadu Higher Education Minister K Ponmudy and his MP son Gautham Sigamani in a money laundering case linked to alleged illegal sand mining, official sources said.

The 72-year-old minister was late night taken by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to its office at Haddows Road in Chennai for a detailed session of questioning.

The agency, according to the sources, has seized fixed deposit receipts of Rs 41.9 crore, around Rs 70 lakh cash and some foreign currency, including pounds (worth about Rs 8-10 lakh), from the linked premises of the minister.

Ponmudy is the second minister in the cabinet of Chief Minister M K Stalin to come under the scanner of the federal probe agency after Senthil Balaji.

Balaji, who was the Tamil Nadu electricity and prohibition minister, was raided and arrested by the ED in June as part of an alleged cash-for-jobs linked money laundering case investigation pertaining to his earlier stint as the state's transport minister.

The raids were undertaken at the premises of the father-son duo in state capital Chennai and in Ponmudy's stronghold of Villupuram, the sources said.

The ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) dubbed the action 'political vendetta'.

The ED teams were escorted by armed personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

They also made seizures of some documents containing details of around two mines each owned by Sigamani and his brother-in-law and one such alleged benami asset.

The agency, as per the sources, has also seized documents that link them to an Indonesia-based mining company and sale transactions worth more than Rs 100 crore.

Sources said these funds were brought back to the country and some alleged benami assets were purchased later.

The minister is an MLA from the Tirukkoyilur Assembly seat in Villupuram district, while his 49-year old son Sigamani is a Member of Parliament representing the Kallakurichi seat.

The ED, in 2020, had issued an order for seizing about Rs 8.6 crore worth assets of Sigamani for alleged contravention of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) by way of 'illegally acquiring foreign security and non-repatriation of foreign exchange earned abroad'.

It was not known immediately about the further adjudication proceedings of this seizure under FEMA.

Reacting to the raids, DMK president Stalin said the ED has joined the 'election campaign'.

The case against Ponmudy is a 'false case' that was foisted on him nearly 13 years ago during the late J Jayalalithaa-led All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam regime, he told reporters in Chennai before leaving for Bengaluru to take part in the Congress-led opposition meet.

"As regards Tamil Nadu, Governor R N Ravi is already conducting a poll campaign for us and now, the ED has joined (the poll scene) and I feel the election work for us will be easy," Stalin said.

"The DMK is not worried a wee bit," he said of the ED searches. Such an action by the ED was 'usual, ordinary and a drama' enacted to divert attention, he added.

The money laundering case is linked to alleged irregularities when Ponmudy was the state mining minister (between 2007 and 2011) and there were allegations of violation of quarry licence conditions leading to loss of more than Rs 28 crore to the exchequer.

The state police had filed a complaint to probe these charges of against the minister and those linked to him, and the Madras High Court in June refused to stay the trial in this case after Sigamani approached it with a petition for relief.

The minister is accused of obtaining mining/quarry licences for his son and other family members and the licencees are alleged to have quarried red sand beyond the permissible limit.

The high court said there were grounds to presume that the petitioner has committed the offence and hence the trial cannot be stopped.

DMK spokesperson A Saravanan told PTI that the ED raids were a 'political vendetta and aimed at testing the DMK's resolve'.

There has been no action from central authorities against AIADMK leaders on graft cases such as the one involving the Gutka scandal, he alleged.

DMK's allies the Congress and the Left parties were among the outfits that strongly condemned the ED action. Also, parties such as the Aam Aadmi Party, opposed to the BJP, also hit out at the Centre.