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Tamil Education Minister Nadu K. Ponmudi (Photo: Twitter)
The case stems from a State Police FIR which alleged irregularities during Ponmudi’s tenure as Minister for Mining and Minerals in the former DMK government.
Official sources said that the Directorate of Law Enforcement on Monday carried out raids at multiple places of DMK leader and Higher Education Minister of Tamil Nadu K Ponmudy and his son MP Gautham Sigamani Pon in a money laundering case linked to alleged illegal mining.
Federal Investigative Agency officials, accompanied by armed members of the Central Reserve Police Force, searched the premises under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
They said the raids are taking place at the duo’s headquarters in Chennai, the state capital, and Ponmudi’s stronghold in Vyupuram.
The 72-year-old minister is an MLA from Tirukkoyilur assembly seat in Villupuram district while his 49-year-old son Sigamani is an MP representing Kallakurichi seat.
The money laundering case stems from the State Police’s FIR and indictment which alleged wrongdoing during Ponmudi’s tenure as Minister for Mining and Minerals in the previous DMK government (between 2007 and 2011). There are allegations of breach of quarry license terms resulting in ‘loss’ of more than Rs 28 crore to the treasury.
The state police had lodged a complaint to investigate the allegations of alleged corruption against the minister and those associated with him and the Madras High Court in June refused to suspend the trial in the case after Sigamani petitioned for relief.
The minister is accused of obtaining mining/quarry licenses for his son and other family members and the licensees are alleged to have extracted red sands beyond the permitted limit.
The Supreme Court said there were grounds for assuming that the petitioner had committed the crime and therefore the trial could not be stayed.
The ED recently initiated a similar procedure against another minister in Prime Minister MK Stalin’s government after it arrested Transport Minister Senthil Balaji in an alleged money laundering case linked to money for jobs. The action against Balaji was criticized by Stalin and the KDP as a “policy of intimidation” by the centre.
(This story was not edited by the News18 staff and was published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)
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