Investigation reveals collection of ‘party fund’ during Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi’s tenure as School Education Minister, CCB tells Madras High Court

The Central Crime Branch (CCB) of the Greater Chennai Police on Monday (October 12, 2026) told the Madras High Court that their investigation into an over ₹100 crore fraud case had revealed the collection of money termed as “party fund” from some of the private school managements in the State during the tenure of Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi as School Education Minister in the last DMK regime.

The submission was made in a counter affidavit filed before Justice V. Lakshminarayanan who was seized of a plea by Mr. Anbil Mahesh to quash the First Information Report (FIR) with respect to him alone. After taking the counter affidavit on file, the judge adjourned the hearing on the quash petition to October 29, 2026 at the request of the petitioner’s counsel Richardson Wilson.

In the counter, filed through State Public Prosecutor R. John Sathyan, the investigating officer said, the name of the former Minister was initially not included in the FIR and that only B.T. Arasakumar, president of an unregistered association of private schools and his co-accused Muthukumar had been named as accused for having reportedly collected crores of rupees from school managements.

Only after the investigation revealed the involvement of Mr. Anbil Mahesh too, the police had included him as the fifth accused and altered the FIR by including the charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

The court was also told that the previous approval required under Section 17A of the Act was obtained from the State government on September 7, 2026 and not on June 23, 2026 as claimed by the petitioner.

Refuting the petitioner’s contention that the approval ought to have been obtained only from the Governor and not from the government, the investigating officer said, the approval had been rightly obtained from the State government before commencing the investigation against the former Minister.

Plea to quash FIR

He urged the court to dismiss the plea for quashing the FIR on the basis of unsustainable and misconceived grounds.

“The Petitioner is deliberately seeking to agitate non-issues, confuse issues, and create unnecessary complications when none exists, solely with a view to drag on the proceedings and create unnecessary stumbling blocks into the investigation of the crime of such huge magnitude. The investigation has disclosed a series of circumstances concerning the petitioner’s conduct, interactions, official position and subsequent administrative action,” the counter affidavit read.