Former Tamil Nadu school education minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi was remanded to judicial custody till November 6 by a special court in Chennai on Monday night and taken to Puzhal Central Prison, in an alleged Rs 100 crore private-school approval case, ANI reported. (Yaani: Rs 100 crore is one billion rupees.)

Source: ANI via LatestLY

Poyyamozhi was produced before the Special Court for cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act at around 10.10 pm on Monday, after a medical examination at a government hospital in Chennai. After hearing the defence and the prosecution for about two hours, Judge L.S. Sathiyamurthy ordered that he remain in judicial custody till November 6, Chennai Vision reported.

Source: Chennai Vision

He was arrested on Monday from an apartment in Aminjikarai, Chennai, hours after the Madras High Court dismissed his anticipatory bail plea. Justice V. Lakshminarayanan had observed that custodial interrogation was necessary to investigate the alleged collection of money from private school managements in the name of a party fund and to trace where the money went, ANI reported.

The case rests on allegations — not proven in court — that money was collected from private school managements by promising government approvals, permanent recognition and permission to upgrade schools during the previous DMK regime, when Poyyamozhi was the school education minister.

DMK spokesperson and advocate Saravanan Annadurai called the arrest illegal and alleged the case was fabricated for political reasons. He said the defence had pointed out the alleged illegality of the remand to the judge and would challenge the order before a higher court, ANI reported.