The Enforcement Directorate has alerted Tamil Nadu police to a massive cash-for-jobs racket in the Municipal Administration and Water Supply (MAWS) department, alleging bribes of Rs 25-35 lakh per post rigged exams for at least 150 candidates among 2,538 appointments personally handed by Chief Minister MK Stalin on August 6 at a grand Chennai event attended by 1,500 recruits. The scam allegedly involved powerful DMK functionaries and relatives of senior ministers.
In a letter under PMLA Section 66(2) to the Head of Police Force, ED cited evidence from an earlier raid in a bank fraud probe tied to True Value Homes (TVH), owned by MAWS Minister KN Nehru's brother N Ravichandran, revealing systemic corruption in mid-2024 exams conducted by Anna University. Call records, WhatsApp chats, and bank transactions show bribes routed through 12 shell companies in Coimbatore and Chennai.
The 232-page dossier names key players, including a DMK MLA’s son, a former municipal chairman, and three Anna University exam centre supervisors, outlines the scam's modus operandi through middlemen collecting cash in Tiruppur hotels, and lists manipulated candidates for roles like assistant engineers (1,200 posts), town planning officers (180), junior engineers (800), and sanitary inspectors (358). ED seeks FIRs against politicians, entities close to them, and university officials under IPC sections for cheating and criminal conspiracy.
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From 1.12 lakh applicants in early 2024, the process allegedly favored bribes over merit, with hawala channels laundering Rs 52 crore in total, including Rs 18 crore in cash seizures from a Nehru aide’s residence in April. This echoes ED's April 2025 raids uncovering Rs 30 crore diversions and posting bribes in MAWS, implicating Nehru's family in shell company schemes registered at the same TVH office address.
MAWS Secretary D Karthikeyan dismissed the claims, insisting the recruitment was "perfectly fine" with no irregularities, conducted via transparent online exams and biometric verification. The expose risks escalating political heat on the DMK government amid prior scandals like the 2023 Senthil Balaji transport jobs case involving Rs 142 crore in bribes and the 2024 TANGEDCO lineman scam. Opposition AIADMK has demanded Stalin’s resignation and a CBI probe.
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