The Indian Express ·
Politics
Raids on ex-Tamil Nadu minister: What is the alleged Rs 100-crore school fraud?
For the DMK, the development carries particular significance because Anbil Mahesh is not merely a former minister. He belongs to one of the party’s old political families and is considered close to Udhayanidhi Stalin.
For the DMK, the development also carries particular significance because Mahesh is not merely a former minister. He belongs to one of the party’s old political families and, personally and politically, to its newer generation.
What is the alleged Rs 100-crore fraud?
The case began with a complaint lodged on June 23 by C Elangovan, secretary of the Federation of Associations of Private Schools in Tamil Nadu. According to the complaint, private schools across Tamil Nadu had, for about two years, been facing difficulties in obtaining permanent recognition, upgrading their institutions, securing building-plan approvals, and receiving clearances from agencies including the Directorate of Town & Country Planning and the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority.
Arasakumar allegedly presented himself as someone who could solve these problems. Police say he operated an unregistered organisation called the Tamil Nadu Private Schools Association and claimed political and bureaucratic connections that could help school managements navigate the government approval system.
The allegation is straightforward: schools paid him large sums believing those approvals would follow; the approvals allegedly did not arrive, and the money was not returned. Investigators estimated that the amount collected could exceed Rs 100 crore.
Arasakumar himself had a political history. A DMK member from 1990 to 2000, and district linguistic wing president between 1995 and 2000, he subsequently joined the BJP before returning to the DMK in 2019.
How did the investigation expand?
The CCB arrested Arasakumar on June 27. Its Economic Documents Fraud wing examined documents, banking transactions, and statements from school managements and found that money had allegedly been collected from institutions across several districts.
Police then publicly asked other school managements that believed they had been cheated to come forward.
The numbers began growing. By the second week of July, investigators had received complaints from 47 schools involving more than Rs 7 crore. Arasakumar’s bank accounts were frozen, and police were searching for another suspect, Muthukumar. On July third week, two more people — Arokiyaraj alias Raja, 39, from Madurai, and Suresh, 49, from Tiruchi — were arrested. Police described them as relatives of Arasakumar who allegedly helped him collect money from school managements despite having no connection with the schools.
Meanwhile, police invoked the Goondas Act against Arasakumar. His wife challenged his preventive detention before the Madras High Court, arguing that the underlying disagreement was essentially a civil dispute between office-bearers of competing private-school associations and did not constitute a threat to public order. By September, however, the investigation had grown considerably: the CCB told the Madras High Court that 177 complaints had been received.
Wednesday’s searches at locations linked to Mahesh therefore represent the latest stage of an investigation that has progressively widened since June.
Who is Anbil Mahesh?
To understand Mahesh’s place in the DMK, one has to go back three generations. His grandfather, Anbil Dharmalingam, was a DMK stalwart and a close associate of M Karunanidhi. His father, Anbil Poyyamozhi, was similarly close to M K Stalin when Stalin himself represented a younger generation rising through the party. Mahesh inherited both the family name and an unusually intimate relationship with the DMK’s first family.
As a child, he told The Indian Express in one of the interviews, he spent school vacations at Karunanidhi’s Gopalapuram residence. He calls Karunanidhi “Kalaignar Thaatha” — grandfather.
Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi paying tribute to the late DMK leader M Karunanidhi in Madurai. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
His father died in 1999 at just 47, when Mahesh was 16. The death was considered a major personal loss for Stalin, then an emerging leader and Chennai Mayor.
Mahesh did not immediately enter politics. He completed his studies, worked in the IT sector and managed family businesses before emerging politically around 2015. He contested Thiruverumbur in 2016, with Karunanidhi himself campaigning for him at a major Tiruchi rally.
Where does Udhayanidhi Stalin fit in?
The relationship is more than the ordinary camaraderie of two politicians from the same generation. Mahesh and Udhayanidhi Stalin have been close friends, and Mahesh’s proximity to him became part of his political identity as he rose within the DMK. By his late 30s, Mahesh was already Tiruchi South district secretary — significant organisational responsibility for a relatively young leader.
He did not particularly conceal the association. During his 2021 Assembly campaign, his Thiruverumbur office displayed giant posters showing Mahesh and Udhayanidhi standing on either side of Stalin.
Asked then about political dynasties and his own inherited advantage, Mahesh described his family’s position differently. Three generations of association with the DMK, he argued, were not the result of the calculated grooming of children but something that “naturally evolved over the years for the contributions a family makes in the movement”.
It is an explanation that also captures the peculiar architecture of his political life: friendships, family histories and party histories have overlapped almost from childhood.
Why are Wednesday’s searches important?
Until now, the police case described an alleged operation built around Arasakumar and associates who claimed that political and bureaucratic connections could unlock government permissions for private schools. That made one question central to the investigation from the beginning: what, if anything, lay behind the claimed access?
After Arasakumar’s arrest in June, police said they were compiling a list to determine who else was connected to the alleged fraud and who stood behind it. The subsequent arrests and mounting complaints widened that inquiry.
The searches at Mahesh’s premises now bring that investigation to the former minister who controlled the department during the period in which the alleged transactions occurred. But the distinction remains important: the case has involved allegations, complaints and an ongoing police investigation. Searches are an investigative step — what evidence they yield and what they establish about Mahesh’s role will determine what the latest turn ultimately means.
What does Mahesh say?
Mahesh, responding after the searches, said more than 20 CCB personnel from Chennai arrived at his Tiruchi residence around 7.40 am and searched the house for more than eight hours, until around 3.40 pm. He said he had cooperated fully, opening every room and drawer for the officers.
“They have asked me to appear on September 18th and answer some questions. I have told them that I will definitely cooperate,” he said. Mahesh, however, alleged that the searches were politically motivated, linking them to his recent criticism of the government. He cited speeches in which he had attacked the government and questioned its proposed expenditure of Rs 1,200 crore on a new Secretariat, as well as his campaigning for the Opposition in the Dharapuram bypoll.
He also urged investigators to conduct the case fairly and not pressure suspects or witnesses to name predetermined political targets.
