The Maharashtra Government has handed over the investigations into the circumstances leading to the suicide of former journalist Charudatta Deshpande on June 28, 2013 to the CBI, following complaints by his family members and some senior journalists that the Thane rural police were not deliberately pursuing the probe into the charges of abetment against a few Tata Steel officials.
Acting on the representations made by Deshpande’s family members and journalists representing the Mumbai Press Club, Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil on Thursday evening issued orders transferring the case from the Thane rural police to the CBI.
A journalist-turned-corporate communication professional, 57-year-old Charu had committed suicide, by hanging himself at his Vasai residence in Thane district on June 28 last year. He had quit his job as the head of Corporate Affairs and Communications at Tata Steel a month earlier.
Subsequently, based on a complaint lodged with the Vasai police station by former Forbes India Editor Indrajit Gupta, the Thane rural police on November 18 last year booked Prabhat Sharma, head of Corporate Affairs of Tata Steel, Jamshedpur under section 306 (Abetment of suicide) of the IPC.
Charu’s suicide had come less than three months after the publication of a cover story “Remoulding Tata Steel” on the challenges before the company, in Forbes India, which dealt with the succession drama that had unfolded with the country’s leading industrial group.
Several of the senior journalists close to Charu, including complainant Indrajit Gupta, had in a joint representation made to the Tata group management had subsequently quoted the deceased former journalist as having alleged that the officials at Tata Steel were placing the blame on him for “facilitating” a story they thought inimical to their interests.
The Maharashtra government’s move to hand over the Charudatta Deshpande suicide case to the CBI came after over 40 journalists submitted a memorandum to Patil making such a request made at a special commemoration meeting organised by the Press Club on the occasion of the first anniversary of the former journalist’s death
During a meeting that they had with Patil early this week, senior journalists and family members – who had gone in a delegation to the State Home Minister, had also complained that the Thane rural police had failed to arrest Prabhat Sharma, the prime accused in the case, despite their having prima facie evidence against him to take into their custody.
Meanwhile, the Tata Steel management – after conducting an internal inquiry into Charu’s death – asked the company’s Vice President Partha Sengupta to resign, while it had transferred Prabhat Sharma from corporate communications to general administration – a fact that the Thane rural police were not aware of.
The Press Club delegation had also presented the home minister with the provisional findings of a psychological autopsy by well-known Mumbai psychiatrist Harish Shetty. “Charudatta Deshpande did not suffer from depression or any serious mental illness before his demise. He appeared to be troubled by stressors from his last employment and felt threatened weeks and months before his death,” Shetty’s report had concluded.