The Madras High Court on Thursday ordered an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation into allegations that a gutkha dealer bribed a Tamil Nadu minister and senior officials of the government, reported The Hindu.

Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Abdul Quddhose passed the order on two petitions filed by J Anbazhagan, an MLA of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, and another by social activist KR Ramaswamy.

“The underground gutkha business is a crime against society and therefore we deem it fit to order a CBI probe into the issue,” the judges said, according to The Hindu. They, however, made it clear that the CBI inquiry should not be construed as a definite conclusion with respect to the complicity of any of the persons involved in the alleged scam and that it was up to the agency to find the truth.

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In July 2016, raids were conducted at the godown, offices and residences of a gutkha manufacturer in Chennai on charges of evading taxes of Rs 250 crore, reported The News Minute. During the raid, officials found a diary that had names of those who were believed to have been paid off in order to facilitate the sale of banned tobacco products in the city. Tamil Nadu Health Minister C Vijayabaskar was one among those named in the diary.

Documents accessed by The Hindu showed that Rs 40 crore was paid to Vijayabaskar and senior officials. Senior police officers and bureaucrats, including Director General of Police TK Rajendran, former Chennai Police Commissioner S George, several officials in the department of Health and Food Safety, and local councillors were named in connection with the scam.

“We welcome the court’s judgement,” DMK Working President MK Stalin told ANI. “We want TN minister Vijayabaskar and DGP TK Rajendran [to] be sacked immediately.” In June, Stalin had sought an inquiry into the media reports alleging payouts.

State Minister for Fisheries and Personnel and Administrative Reforms D Jayakumar said the CBI inquiry “is not a setback” and the question of Vijayabaskar resigning would arrive only “when inquiry reveals the guilty”.