V G Siddhartha death: Cops may question former Income Tax D G Balakrishnan

New Delhi, Aug 01: The Mangaluru police might come knocking on the doors of B R Balakrishnan, former director-general of Income Tax (Investigation Wing) as part of its investigation into the death of Cafe Coffee Day founder V G Siddhartha.

B R Balakrishnan also silently retired from his post on Wednesday.

"We are talking to a lot of people as part of the probe. A police team which is in Bengaluru will be collecting a statement from the Income Tax officials as well," a senior police officer, who is part of the investigation, said.

It should be noted that in his letter to the Coffee Day board of directors, before he ended life makes serious allegations of harassment to him. Siddhartha had claimed that he was being harassed by the "previous DG income tax", in the form of attaching shares to allegedly block a deal with IT company Mindtree.

Siddhartha was referring to, Balakrishnan who was the Director-General of Income Tax Investigation in Bengaluru at that time and was in charge of a probe into Cafe Coffee Day, which allegedly revealed a concealed income of around Rs 650 crore.

In September 2017, IT-sleuths raided premises of the coffee shop chain, which had allegedly revealed tax-related irregularities in the company's functioning.

IT officers have also repeatedly called him for investigation and grilled him. The grilling on hawala transactions from outside countries broke him and sent him into a depression.