A special court on Thursday served copies of a chargesheet filed by the Central Crime Branch, Job Racket Wing, against 47 persons including Electricity Minister V. Senthilbalaji, who was the Transport Minister in the AIADMK government between 2011 and 2015, for their involvement in a recruitment scam.
Last March, the CCB filed chargesheet naming Mr. Senthilbalaji, his personal assistants, former managing directors of transport corporations, junior engineers and others. Investigation revealed that during 2014-15, Mr. Senthilbalaji entered into a criminal conspiracy with then managing directors of all State Transport Undertakings (STUs) and other officers of transport corporations to obtain illegal gratification from candidates to recruit them as driver, conductor, junior tradesman, junior assistant, junior engineer and assistant engineer in the transport corporations, said the charge-sheet.
It alleged that he received illegal gratification from the candidates and sent lists to the managing directors, appointing authority and personnel section officers of the Metropolitan Transport Corporation to issue appointment orders to them. They fraudulently altered the original interview marks of the candidates in the registers, the chargesheet said.
The registers containing details of candidates, maintained in the personnel section, were tampered with and forged. Interview marks were fraudulently reduced for meritorious candidates. Consequently, the files, records and registers were falsely fabricated by officials, and thereby they committed offences punishable under Sections 465 (punishment for forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using genuine as forged) and 420 (cheating) of IPC r/w 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
On Thursday when the case came up before the special court for exclusive trial of cases related to MPs and MLAs, a petition was filed by Mr. Senthilbalaji seeking to dispense with his personal appearance. The court ordered furnishing copies to him and another person through their counsel. They were furnished to others in person. The case was adjourned to July 27 for further hearing.
