The Madras High Court on Friday exempted Minister for Electricity, Prohibition and Excise V. Senthilbalaji from appearing before a trial court in a job racket case booked against him for cheating people when he was the Minister for Transport in the AIADMK government in 2014.
Justice M. Nirmal Kumar dispensed with his appearance before a special court for trying cases against legislators till July 30. The exemption was granted after senior counsel S. Prabakaran said the Minister would not be able to attend the proceedings frequently owing to official work.
The interim order was passed on a revision petition filed by the Minister, challenging the refusal of the special court to discharge him from the case.
The hearing of the revision petition was adjourned to July 30 since S. Suresh, counsel for complainant V. Ganesh Kumar, sought time to file an intervening petition and oppose the plea for discharge.
Mr. Suresh told the court that the Minister had already filed a plea before the High Court to quash the entire case, but it was dismissed as withdrawn by Justice N. Anand Venkatesh in 2019. Subsequently, he filed a plea to discharge him and that got rejected on merits by the trial court on August 26, 2020.
On the other hand, Mr. Prabakaran said the entire complaint was aimed at tarnishing the image of the Minister. He said the complaint was filed with a political motive, and now the intention of the complainant was to drag the proceedings unnecessarily.
