You'll need a cricket stadium for trial: Supreme Court slams TN in Senthil Balaji case

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that conducting the trial in the cash-for-jobs case involving former Tamil Nadu minister V Senthil Balaji may require a “cricket stadium,” as it pulled up the State government for naming over 2,000 individuals as accused. [Y Balaji v. The State & Anr]

A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi was hearing a plea against a March 2024 order of the Madras High Court, which had dismissed objections to the clubbing of chargesheets. The Court was informed that over 2,300 people had been named as accused in the scam.

The Court questioned how a trial of such magnitude could be handled without an effective prosecutorial plan. Justice Bagchi said that the prosecution appeared to be proceeding without direction.

“We want from you clearly and definitely what is your prosecutorial plan. It seems to be a very rudderless ship…With 200 witnesses summoned in a court hall, it will perhaps be one of the most populated trials in India..You'll need a cricket stadium,” the judge said.

Justice Kant added that managing the attendance of all accused would be nearly impossible, and mocked the expected scale of the trial.

“Almost impossible task will be to mark their presence. There will be 100s of AI-generated accused on that day."

The Bench observed that the State’s conduct suggested an intention to delay proceedings indefinitely by implicating individuals who were allegedly victims of the scam. It said that this approach served to protect the main accused, including the ex-minister.

“You are more keen to prosecute them so that in the entire lifetime of the minister, the trial proceedings never come to an end. This is your modus operandi. This is a complete fraud being committed on the system,” it said.

It asked the State to identify the key individuals involved in the scam, apart from Balaji himself. Justice Kant noted that the case appeared to involve multiple layers of complicity.

“We would like to know besides the minister, who were the alleged brokers or middlemen? Who were the officers who acted on the recommendations of the minister? Who were the members of the selection committee? Who were the authorities who gave the appointment?” the judge asked.

Appearing for the petitioner, Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan submitted that the State was colluding with the accused ex-minister and had wrongly implicated those who had paid bribes under coercion. He said that many of them were poor individuals who had pledged jewellery or taken loans to secure jobs for family members.

“The best approach is to see who are the genuine accused such as the minister, his brother, his PA, and the other people around him who solicited this. The others who are now arrayed as accused saying they are bribe givers, whether they are prime accused or whether they can be treated like witnesses is a call that can be taken,” Sankaranarayanan said.

He also suggested the appointment of a special public prosecutor to ensure that the trial was conducted independently and fairly.

Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the State, opposed the suggestion. He said that earlier benches of the Supreme Court had already rejected the request for a special prosecutor and had found no fault with the pace of investigation. He also said that the petitioner was trying to “forum shop.”

Singhvi argued that appointing a special prosecutor from outside the State would create a perception that Tamil Nadu was unwilling to prosecute its own officials.

“It sends the wrong signal. That we don’t trust our own prosecution and judiciary. That we need to get someone from Kerala or Bengal to prosecute our case,” he said.

The Court, however, said that if necessary, it could direct the appointment of an additional special public prosecutor to strengthen the existing team.

Justice Bagchi was surprised that the State had no plan to classify the accused based on their level of culpability.

“How would you achieve clubbing until and unless we gave a suggestion that you see the witnesses with regard to their degree of marginal culpability and prime culpability? Why should it come from us? This thought never crossed your prosecutor’s mind,” the judge said.

The Court also commented on earlier orders of the Madras High Court, which had quashed FIRs in the case. Justice Kant said that the Supreme Court had to intervene to revive those proceedings.

“All the FIRs were quashed at the High Court level thanks to a kind of a friendly match made there. Because of the judicial intervention of this Court, the matters have been revived,” he said.

The Bench directed the State to submit a full list of accused and witnesses to identify overlaps and enable effective clubbing of cases. Justice Kant said that the Court needed a clear picture of how many accused and witnesses were involved.

“Give a list of witnesses also so that we can see how many accused and witnesses are overlapping,” the judge said.

Justice Bagchi added that visual tools could be used to better understand the case structure.

“In fact, create Venn diagrams,” he said in lighter vein.

The matter will next be heard on August 11. The Court also said it would list all other matters involving Balaji for hearing on the same day.

Balaji was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on June 14, 2023, in connection with a money laundering case arising out of FIRs registered in 2018. These FIRs were based on allegations that during his tenure as Transport Minister in the AIADMK government between 2011 and 2015, Balaji had orchestrated a large-scale jobs-for-cash scam by demanding bribes from candidates in exchange for appointments to posts in the state transport corporations.

In September 2024, the Supreme Court granted him bail after observing that the trial was unlikely to conclude in the near future due to the large number of accused and the slow pace of proceedings.

Just three days after his release, Balaji was reinducted into the Tamil Nadu cabinet as Minister for Electricity, Non-conventional Energy, Prohibition and Excise, sparking a political controversy.

In April 2025, the Court questioned whether a person facing serious money laundering charges could continue in public office.

The Bench led by Justice Abhay S Oka told Balaji to make a choice between holding office and remaining on bail. Balaji subsequently resigned from the cabinet on April 27, 2025.

Meanwhile, a total of 10 charge sheets were filed by the State police in connection with the scam, naming over 2,300 individuals as accused. Many of them were originally complainants or individuals who had allegedly paid bribes to secure jobs.

It was argued before the Court that the chargesheets had been clubbed in a way that diluted the case against the primary accused and caused immense hardship to innocent persons by labelling them as accused. The State government was alleged to be protecting the former minister while ensuring the trial never concluded.