New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday provisionally attached properties worth Rs. 14.21 crore owned by the family of Tamil Nadu Higher Education Minister K Ponmudy in connection with the illegal mining of red earth.
This is yet another setback for Ponmudy, whose discharge in a disproportionate assets (DA) case has been taken up suo motu by the Madras High Court. Ponmudy, a senior leader of the DMK, was dropped from the Cabinet in December 2022 after the High Court convicted him under the Prevention of Corruption Act and sentenced him to jail for four years – he was inducted back as a minister after the Supreme Court suspended the sentence.
The ED filed a case against Ponmudy, his son and former Kallakurichi MP P Gautam Sigamani, and K S Raja Mahendran, who is the brother-in-law of the latter.
The investigation revealed that Ponmudy, as the Minister of Mines between 2007 and 2010, allotted five licenses in the names of his son Sigamani, Raja Mahendran, and Jayachandran. Jayachandran admitted, according to ED, that he acted on behalf of Sigamani for quarrying red earth in patta lands.
“The investigation revealed that the Red Earth was extracted illegally beyond the permitted limits to the tune of Rs. 25.7 Crore. ED investigation also revealed that the sale proceeds were invested in the overseas entity,” the central agency said in a statement.
The agency had in July 2023 conducted searches in connection with the case, resulting in the seizure of cash totalling Rs. 81.42 lakh, with unexplained foreign currency primarily in British pounds equivalent to approximately Rs 13 Lakh, freezing of amounts to the tune of Rs. 41.9 Crore lying in the form of FD.
“Further, immovable properties held in the name of K.S. Raja Mahendran & his entities valued Rs. 5.47 Crore and movable properties held in the name of Confluence (an entity owned by Sigamani’s wife) lying in the form of bank FDs and balance valued Rs. 8.74 Crore, aggregating to Rs. 14.21 crore have been identified and provisionally attached,” the agency added.
Ponmudy, deputy general secretary of the DMK, is placed fifth in the pecking order of the Council of Ministers headed by Stalin. A senior leader having served in every party-led dispensation since 1989, Ponmudy quit as a professor to contest the assembly elections in 1989 after having been involved with the DMK since his student days.
This is not the first time Ponmudy’s family has come under the ED scanner – his son Sigamani’s properties worth Rs 8.60 crore were seized in October 2020 for illegally acquiring foreign security without approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) by Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA).
The ED had said it issued a seizure order under Section 37A of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA) seizing properties held by the DMK MP to the tune of Rs 8.60 crores, equivalent to the value of the illegally acquired foreign security and non-repatriation of foreign exchange earned abroad till date.