Justice V. Mohana of the Supreme Court on Friday (July 31, 2026) recused herself from hearing an appeal filed by former Prohibition, Electricity and Excise Minister V. Senthilbalaji, against a Madras High Court refusal to grant him pre-arrest bail in a corruption case registered by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) on July 28.

The Chief Justice said he would constitute an appropriate Bench shortly to hear the petition.

The Supreme Court agreed to urgently hear an appeal filed by the former DMK Minister after the Madras High Court had on Thursday (July 30, 2026) refused to grant him anticipatory bail to former DMK Minister.

Justice G.K. Ilanthiraiyan had dismissed Mr. Senthilbalaji’s advance bail petition after observing that the case relates to the charge of having caused a loss of crores of rupees to the public exchequer when he was a Minister and therefore, it required custodial interrogation.

Opposing the plea, State Public Prosecutor R. John Sathyan said that the loss to the public exchequer appeared to be at least ₹100 crore and that the entire crime could be unearthed only through the investigation of the case and by subjecting the accused to interrogation.

Former Minister for Electricity and DMK Coimbatore South MLA V. Senthilbalaji on Thursday (May 4) said the power outage and shortage prevalent in the State has to be resolved on a war-footing.

Interacting with journalists after the inauguration of his constituency office on Huzur Road, he said that during the tenure of the previous DMK-led government, the State never had any power outage and or scarcity.

Claiming that the ruling TVK was now floating a theory that government servants were pro-Opposition, he said governments might change but the bureaucrats would not. If the TVK said there were black sheep in the official machinery, what about the rest of the bureaucracy, he asked.

The TVK could ask for time to implement whatever was promised in its election manifesto, but law and order maintenance cannot be given time. He reminded the ruling party that it was on the verge of losing whatever public confidence it had. He said a popular criticism now was that the TVK came to power through “reels” but was failing to give a real governance.