Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has written to Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman requesting a judicial inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the recent death by suicide of prominent industrialist and Confident Group chairman CJ Roy in Bengaluru.
Roy, a Bengaluru-born Malayali industrialist and film producer who headed a firm with expansive real-estate footprints in Kerala, Karnataka and the Middle East, was found dead on January 30 at his Langford Town office in Bengaluru while Income Tax (I-T) search and seizure operations were ongoing at the premises. Bengaluru Police officers said Roy went into an adjoining room during the search operations and shot himself in the chest with a licensed pistol. He was declared ‘brought dead’ by doctors at a private hospital nearby.
The Kerala CM said Roy’s death has spread shockwaves through the business community and civil society in the state.
He termed the unfortunate incident “a blot on the tax administration of the country” when the aim of the government has been stated as ‘Non Intrusive Usage of Data to Guide and Enable’ (NUDGE).
“It is quite surprising that the person in whose premises, the Income Tax department was conducting a search and seizure operation, could proceed to lay hands on a loaded gun and shoot himself, when the tax department personnel were going ahead with search operations. When such operations are proceeding, the premises are to be under the control of the tax officials and the safe conduct of search is the minimum responsibility of the officials,” the CM stated in the letter.
{{/usCountry}}“It is quite surprising that the person in whose premises, the Income Tax department was conducting a search and seizure operation, could proceed to lay hands on a loaded gun and shoot himself, when the tax department personnel were going ahead with search operations. When such operations are proceeding, the premises are to be under the control of the tax officials and the safe conduct of search is the minimum responsibility of the officials,” the CM stated in the letter.
{{/usCountry}}Vijayan pointed to serious lapses on the part of the I-T officials raiding Roy’s premises and underlined that “non-compliance with the following of minimum essential protocol” during the act has led to the loss of a human life.
He also cited the statement of Roy’s brother CJ Babu in the local media where the latter alluded to the trouble caused by I-T officials to his brother as “unbearable”.
The CM said an impartial inquiry is essential to examine the legal and administrative procedures taken during the search operation in the case at present and to prevent such incidents in the future.
“It is my belief that the best option which can be exercised by the Government of India in this matter will be to order a judicial inquiry into the incident and it will be in the fitness of things that the Commission of Inquiry be headed by a person who has had experience as a judge in a constitutional court,” the CM wrote to the FM.
While a probe by a special investigation team of the Karnataka police is underway, the CM said a judicial inquiry can cover wider aspects of the case including the grievances expressed by Roy’s family.