Chennai: Tamil Nadu minister without portfolio, Senthil Balaji, who is lodged in Puzhal Central Prison in Chennai has moved the Madras High Court seeking bail purely on the basis of his medical condition.
Senthil Balaji was arrested by the ED on June 14 in a case related to the job-for-cash scam while he was serving as a minister during the previous AIADMK regime.
Balaji subsequently left the AIADMK and joined the DMK where he became a minister in the new government led by Chief Minister MK Stalin.
Balaji in his petition before the Madras High Court stated that the Supreme Court itself had released several prisoners on bail solely on humanitarian and medical grounds. In the plea – which will be heard by the Single Bench Judge, Justice Jayachandran of the Madras High Court – Balaji said that he has a right to be treated in a hospital of his choice without being admitted and confined to the prison hospital.
Balaji in his petition mentioned that he had suffered from pain in his heart immediately after he was arrested and on investigation at the government hospital it was found that he had three blockages in the Coronary artery.
In his plea, the minister said that he underwent a bypass surgery at the private Kaveri Hospital and was later shifted to the Puzhal prison on June 17 and interrogated in custody by the ED for six days in August.
The petition said that despite being treated in the prison hospital, his recovery was slow and that he was still suffering from chest discomfort, pain, severe numbness and pain in his left leg.
The minister also stated that he suffered uneasiness on October 8 and the prison authorities took him to the Government Stanley Medical College Hospital where the doctors diagnosed him as suffering from lacunar stroke symptoms and dyslipidemia.
The minister has said in his appeal that merely because treatment is given in the prison hospital does not mean the prisoner is not entitled to get better treatment at a hospital of choice.
(IANS)
