Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has written to Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Seetharaman seeking a judicial inquiry into the death of real estate tycoon CJ Roy during an Income Tax search in Bengaluru on January 30.
In a letter dated Sunday, Vijayan said the suspected suicide of the real estate tycoon had shocked civic society and the business community.
Terming the incident a “blot” on the country’s tax administration, Vijayan said from the reports that are coming, it seems that lack of required diligence has resulted in the loss of the precious life of an entrepreneur. “It is quite surprising that the person on 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. During such operations, the premises are to be under the control of the tax officials. The safe conduct of search is the minimum responsibility of officials,” he said.
Referring to the statement of Roy’s brother to the media that Roy had fully cooperated with the search party and that the ‘I-T trouble was unbearable’, the chief minister said that the grievances of the immediate family must be viewed with empathy.
Describing the incident as extremely serious and linked it to the government’s stated tax approach of ‘Non Intrusive Usage of Data to Guide and Enable’ (NUDGE), Vijayan said internal reports or mere assertions of procedural compliance would not inspire public confidence, and that only a judicial inquiry examining the entire sequence of events would have credibility in the eyes of society.
“It is my belief that the best option that 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 in the letter.
He added that such an inquiry could examine legal procedures, administrative actions, and the family’s grievances, and also help prevent similar incidents in the future.