Chennai: The Madras High Court's order came in the afternoon. By evening, a Central Crime Branch team had picked up Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi from an apartment in Aminjikarai.
The former school education minister, who held the portfolio between 2021 and 2026, is now an accused in a case that began as a complaint about private schools being strung along with promises.
Justice V. Lakshminarayanan dismissed his anticipatory bail petition on Monday. The CCB, which investigates serious offences in the city, added Poyyamozhi as an accused only after it seized material indicating that money was collected and described as "party fund", police sources said.
The complaint was filed by C. Elangovan, secretary of the Tamil Nadu Private Schools Federation, with the Chennai Police Commissioner. It named B. T. Arasakumar, 59, who is accused of collecting large sums by running an unregistered body called the Tamil Nadu Private Schools Association. Arasakumar was later detained under the Goondas Act.
The allegation is specific. School managements were told their pending files would move — permanent recognition, permission to upgrade a school, building plan clearance from the Directorate of Town and Country Planning — because of the association's "proximity" to the then ruling establishment. The money came in, the files did not move.
Investigators say 177 private schools have been identified in connection with the alleged collection of at least ₹100 crore. The FIR was first registered under sections 316(5) and 318(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, read with section 3(5). The prosecution later filed an alteration report before the Metropolitan Magistrate to add sections 7 and 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act and to array the former minister as an accused.
Muthukumar, described by police sources as a close associate of Poyyamozhi, is absconding and teams are looking for him.
Poyyamozhi had first moved the High Court seeking to quash the FIR, then applied for anticipatory bail once he was named. Both routes are now closed to him.
The arrest puts a former cabinet minister of the state's previous DMK-led government in custody in a corruption case, and it lands in the middle of a running argument between the ruling party and the opposition over how school licences were handed out. None of the allegations has been tested in a trial.
For the school managements who filed the original complaint, the claim on record is simple: fees were paid for clearances that never arrived.