Former Minister E.V. Velu.
| Photo Credit: C. VENKATACHALAPATHY
Former Minister from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) E.V. Velu has approached the Madras High Court with a plea to quash a First Information Report (FIR) registered against him by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption (DVAC) on June 26, 2026 for having allegedly swindled crores of rupees of public money without laying roads in the State highways in 2022.
His plea to first dispense with the production of the original copy of the FIR has been listed for orders on Tuesday (July 7, 2026) before Justice G.K. Ilanthiraiyan, holding the MP/MLA portfolio, since the the petitioner is also a sitting MLA representing Tiruvannamalai constituency. Only after the judge dispenses with the production of the original FIR, the main quash petition would get numbered.
The FIR had been registered on the basis of a complaint lodged by Jayaram Venkatesan, convenor of anti corruption organisation Arappor Iyakkam, on April 20, 2022. The complainant had sought action against the then State Highways Minister, a host of other public servants who aided him in the alleged crime and also the private contractors to whom public money had been paid for the unexecuted works.
According to the complainant, more than ₹5,000 crore of public money had been alloted by the State Highways department under its flagiship scheme Comprehensive Road Infrastructure Development Programme (CRIDP) but there had been rampant corruption and mismanagement of those funds. Listing out some of the incidents that had come to his notice, Mr. Venkatesan, said, corrupt practices had taken place across the State.
The complaint stated that in Tiruppur circle, a private contractor had been paid ₹3.23 crore without executing the road widening and improvement contract and it was only after former AIADMK Minister M.R. Vijayabhaskar (now in TVK) raised a complaint, four officials of the highways department were suspended from service. “This means a criminal act of fraud and corruption has taken place resulting in unjust enrichment of the contractor,” the complaint read.
The complainant went on to state that similarly ₹1.5 crore had been paid to a contractor in March 2022 without any work being carried out in Karur sub division. He also relied upon a news carried by a television channel to claim that around ₹25 crore had been paid in Kancheepuram division and insisted upon conducting a full fledged probe into the issue to find out the total quantum of public money having been swindled.
The DVAC had registered the FIR against Mr. Velu, nine former officials of the highways department, one private contractor and other unknown officials as well as private individuals under various provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 as well as the Indian Penal Code.
Published – July 07, 2026 12:33 am IST
