SC refuses to entertain Balaji’s plea

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to entertain the bail plea of DMK minister V Senthil Balaji, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case, saying his sickness does not appear to be “serious or life-threatening”.

Balaji was seeking bail on health grounds.

The top court was hearing an appeal against an order of the Madras High Court which dismissed his bail plea on October 19, saying he was likely to influence witnesses if enlarged on bail. An apex court bench of justices Bela M Trivedi and SC Sharma, after perusing the health reports, said there was nothing serious in his health condition and granted liberty to Balaji to approach trial court to seek regular bail.

At the outset, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Balaji, requested the court to allow Balaji’s application and referred to a condition called chronic lacunar infarction. Justice Trivedi, however, said, “I checked on Google. It says that it can be cured by medication. It does not appear to be serious or life-threatening, otherwise, we would have seriously considered it.” Rohatgi then said the need for hospitalisation of a prisoner was not a prerequisite for granting medical bail and said,”the man is sick, he has had a bypass.”