The bench called for listing all matters pending before the top court involving Balaji and posted the case for further hearing on 31 July.The Supreme Court was hearing a plea filed by Balaji challenging the Madras High Court’s 28 March order rejecting his petition against clubbing several supplementary charge sheets with the main case involving the former minister.Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for Balaji, submitted that the state had allegedly colluded with the accused, who is its own minister. In response, the state’s counsel alleged that the petitioner was engaging in forum shopping and pointed out that a similar plea by the same petitioner had not been entertained earlier.In September last year, the apex court had granted bail to Balaji after observing that he had been in custody for one year and that the trial was unlikely to commence in the near future. “If we can’t imagine trial commencing in 3 months or 4 months, then the fact remains that the trial is not going to proceed,” the court had noted in its order.The chargesheet in the case has been filed by the predicate agency as well as the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The ED had filed a 1,000-page chargesheet against Balaji last year, but the trial is yet to begin.Earlier, the Madras High Court, while rejecting Balaji’s bail plea on 28 February last year, observed that granting him bail in such a case would send a wrong message and would be against the larger public interest. Balaji then moved the Supreme Court for bail.The Tamil Nadu minister was arrested on 14 June last year by the ED in connection with a money laundering case linked to the alleged cash-for-jobs scam that took place when he was the Transport Minister during an earlier AIADMK regime. The ED has alleged his involvement in corruption.However, Balaji has strongly denied the allegations and claimed that the ED has not identified any proceeds of crime against him. He further argued that the main evidence relied upon by the agency is derived from the predicate offence.
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