The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has granted anticipatory bail with conditions to R.V. Ashok Kumar, younger brother of former Minister V. Senthilbalaji, who was apprehending arrest by Karur police in connection with cases registered for obstructing and assaulting Income Tax officials from conducting searches in Karur in 2023.

The court was hearing five petitions filed by Mr. Ashok Kumar seeking anticipatory bail. The case of the prosecution was that Income tax officials had come to the premises of the petitioner and his associates on May 26, 2023, to conduct the search operations under Section 132 of the Income Tax Act pursuant to duly executed search warrants.

According to the prosecution, the officials were obstructed from performing their official duties, manhandled, physically assaulted, threatened, verbally abused, the search warrants snatched from them and destroyed, and laptops and pen drives containing crucial confidential data were snatched from them.

The vehicle of the officials was also damaged by a mob who gathered on the premises of the petitioner and his associates, all at the instance of the petitioner, with an intention to threaten and instil fear so as to prevent the officials from performing their official duties and to thwart the search operations.

Justice P. Dhanabal granted anticipatory bail in four cases with certain conditions and taking into account that one of the cases had been closed as a mistake of fact, closed the petition. The petitioner was directed to report before Karur police on every Saturday at 10 a.m., for a period of four weeks.