States » SouthPosted at: Oct 1 2026 3:11PM


After police raids and questioning, ED steps in to probe Rs.100 cr private school corruption case against ex-DMK Min

Chennai, Oct 1 (UNI) Two weeks after raids by police and questioning and a day after the Madras High Court refused interim relief on plea to quash the case, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) stepped in on Thursday to probe the alleged Rs.100 crore private school cheating case involing senior DMK leader and Tamil Nadu School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi.
The ED has now taken up the matter based on the FIR registered by the CCB police on September 16 to examine the alleged illegal financial transactions and the money trail in the case and the possible money laundering angle.
The ED has obtained the case documents from the CCB police and is examining the financial transactions connected with the alleged collection of money from private schools promising permanent recognitions and other statutory government approvals. The agency is also planning to conduct searches at premises linked to Anbil Mahesh and B.T.Arasakumar, cited as the key accused and was the first person to be arrested in the case, as part of its investigation.
The ED comes into the picture a day after Justice V. Lakshminarayanan refused to grant relief to the former Minister and directed the State government to file a counter within one week.
Senior counsel, P. Wilson, appearing for Mr Anbil Mahesh, submitted that his house was raided on September 16 and he was summoned to appear for investigation on September 18th and was investigated for about eight hours. He further stated that the petitioner recently learnt that the section in the original FIR filed against Arasakumar had been altered, and that he had a detention order that was subsequently quashed.
Wilson said in the section alteration report, Anbil Mahesh's name has been included, and the investigating officer in this report stated that the secretary to the Government of Tamil Nadu had granted approval under Section 17A(1)(b) for investigating him. He argued that Section 17A(1)(C) applies to his client since he had been a Minister at that time, which states that approval can only be granted by the authority who could remove the public servant from office at the time the alleged offence was said to have been committed.
He relied on Article 164 of the Constitution and submitted that only the Governor can remove him from office, since he is a minister then. Citing Snow and orders in similar cases, Wilson contended that the approval granted by the Secretary to the Government is not valid in law and is barred by law. He mentioned that the court wass already seized of a similar matter and, therefore, Anbil Mahesh's case will be directly covered if the court decides similar cases.
When the Court asked whether the counsel was seeking an order to stay the investigation, he replied that he was not seeking such relief; but expressed concern that coercion might occur during the investigation. The judge then suggested filing an anticipatory bail application to seek relief and fixed the main case for the public prosecutor to file the counter in the quash petition within one week.
Based on a complaint from Federation of Associations of Private School in Tamil Nadu Secretary T.C.Elangovan that Arasakumar (59) had collected large sums of money from private school managements promising to secure government approvals and clearances, including Permanent Recognition, School Upgradation and building-related approvals, police booked him under several sections.
Arasakumar, who claimed himself as President of an unregistered Association, was arrested on June 27 and was remanded in judicial custody. He was subsequently detained under the Goondas Act which was subsequently quashed by the High Court. Widening the probe, police arrested two more people in the case.
After holding state-wide inquiries, questioned about 250 people, including officials attached to the School Education and other Deparments and seizing incriminating documents, it came to light that several crores of money have been collected from 177 private schools in the first phase. As the complaints continued to pour in alleging financial irregularties and cheating, officials freezed the bank accounts of Arasakumar, his family members and those linked to him.
Several documents and digital evidences, including mobile phones, hard disks were recovered. Even as further probe was on in the case, a persual of the seized materials and evidences revealed the involvement of the former School Education Minister in alleged corrupt activities.
After registering cases under various sections including under the provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act, the CCB officials had on September 16 conducted raids at nine locations linked to the former DMK Minister and three of his assistants Valadi Karthik, Arun Prakash and Prakash, for the alleged irregularties and seized 188 incriminating documents.
The raids were conducted at nine locations linked to the four people, including two premises each linked to the DMK leader in his native Tiruchy and Chennai, and seized 118 documents, including property documents, bank account details, cheques, 18 mobile phones, three laptops, eight pendrives, a desktop with inbuilt hard disk, one Tablet and one Apple I-pad.
After the searches, the police also summoned the former Minister for questioning who appeared before the investigating authorities on September 18.
Police claimed that more than Rs 100 crore was collected from several school managements through the network under investigation. It was said that Arasakumar was alleged to have operated through an unregistered body called the Tamil Nadu Private Schools Association. It was launched by Arasakumar in December 2024 with several private school associations as its members. Anbil Mahesh, who was then the School Education Minister, and senior officials of the School Education Department had attended the launch, police quoting investigations said.
The case was initially based on complaints alleging that large sums of money were collected from private schools by promising to facilitate permanent recognition, approvals and other statutory clearances. The investigation has since been expanded to examine the role of several individuals and the flow of funds.
The ED probe is expected to focus on the alleged financial transactions and whether the proceeds of the alleged offence would attract provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
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Tags: #After police raids and questioning# ED steps in to probe Rs.100 cr private school corruption case against ex-DMK Min
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