The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has approached the Tamil Nadu government headed by Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay seeking sanction to prosecute former DMK minister V Senthil Balaji in the alleged cash-for-jobs scam linked to appointments in the transport department, as reported in Times of India.
In a fresh communication sent to Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary M Sai Kumar, the ED not only sought prosecution sanction under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) but also alleged that the outgoing DMK government had “deliberately delayed” granting sanction because Senthil Balaji was part of the council of ministers.
Scoop: Enforcement Directorate writes to TN government under CM Vijay, seeks sanction to prosecute ex-DMK minister Senthil Balaji in cash-for-jobs scam.
ED also alleges outgoing DMK govt “deliberately delayed” sanctioning this, as Senthil Balaji was part of the govt.
Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/LOWdvLsKXf— Siddharth Prabhakar (@Sidprabhakar7) May 18, 2026
The development marks a significant escalation in the long-running money-laundering case that has politically haunted the DMK for years.
According to sources, the Chennai Zone of the ED wrote to the state government on May 15, enclosing all relevant evidence collected during the investigation, including a secret investigation note and a copy of the prosecution complaint in digital format.
The ED stated that its earlier request for sanction, sent on May 14, 2025 to the then Governor of Tamil Nadu, had been returned earlier this year following directions from the state government.
The agency said the then chief secretary had informed the governor in October 2025 that only the state government was competent to grant prosecution sanction against a public servant and that the ED should have directly approached the chief secretary instead of the governor.
Following that communication, the ED has now formally resubmitted the request directly to the Tamil Nadu government under the new TVK administration.
The central agency has also reportedly alleged that the previous DMK government intentionally prolonged the sanction process because Senthil Balaji continued to remain a minister in the government despite facing serious corruption and money-laundering allegations.
The alleged scam pertains to recruitments in the Tamil Nadu transport department between 2011 and 2016, when V Senthil Balaji served as transport minister in the AIADMK government.
The ED had registered a money-laundering case against Senthil Balaji, his brother R. V. Ashok Kumar and former aides B Shanmugam and M Karthikeyan. The agency accused them of collecting illegal gratification from candidates seeking government jobs in the transport department.
Senthil Balaji was arrested by the ED in June 2023 in a dramatic operation that triggered a prolonged confrontation between the DMK government and central agencies.
Although the Supreme Court granted bail to Senthil Balaji in September 2024, the ED later filed a prosecution complaint before the special PMLA court in Chennai.
However, the trial has remained stalled because sanction from the state government is mandatory since Senthil Balaji was a minister at the time of the alleged offences.
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