After Top Bureaucrat And Family's Suicide, CBI Says Don't Blame Us

New Delhi: A year after a top bureaucrat and his entire family committed suicide in their flat in East Delhi, the CBI has concluded that none of its officials harassed or humiliated the Bansals during an investigation into an alleged kickback paid to the official.

In September 2016, BK Bansal was found hanging from a ceiling fan in his apartment along with his son, Yogesh. Two months earlier, Mr Bansal's wife and daughter had killed themselves in the same flat after he was arrested on charges of accepting a bribe from a pharmaceutical company that was allegedly trying to buy its way out of an investigation.

Suicide notes by Mr Bansal, who was 59, and his son, Yogesh, named five CBI officials who they said had harassed them and tortured and abused the women in the family.

The CBI said that CCTV footage of Yogesh Bansal and his mother visiting as many as 20 bank lockers just days before the women committed suicide suggested unnatural financial activity. They also claimed that two days before the men hanged themselves, Yogesh Bansal had disclosed to tax officers that he had about two crores of black money in cash.

Advertisement

Mr Bansal, 59, was Director General in the Corporate Affairs Ministry. He was being investigated by the CBI and had been released on bail when he killed himself.

The CBI set up a team to investigate the family's suicide as the country's top human rights body and other agencies demanded an explanation for the harassment alleged by the Bansals.
 While no CBI official has been held responsible, the Central Vigilance Commission, which investigates corruption among government officials, is working on guidelines for interrogation which will be sent in two months to all investigating agencies.

Advertisement

KV Chaudhary, who heads the top anti-corruption body, told NDTV, "We are exploring the possibility of issuing an SOP which will protect the rights of the accused in criminal investigations."

The CBI in its report says that while the suicide of the Bansal family is "unfortunate", their officers are not to blame.

Advertisement

"How can you expect anything when CBI is itself probing CBI?" said BK Bansal's nephew Vinod Bansal, who lives in Haryana. He said that he had not heard from the agency at all about their conclusion of the probe. "They haven't said anything to us. We are small people but our brother was the Director General of Corporate Affairs. If they didn't pay attention to him, then we are no one. We were waiting for the closure of this probe, we didn't expect anything."