Wife and daughter of DG Corporate Affairs BK Bansal, arrested by CBI in bribery case, found dead

Director General Corporate Affairs BK Bansal was nabbed from a hotel while bribe was allegedly being exchanged.

Delhi: The wife and daughter of  Director General Corporate Affairs BK Bansal, an additional secretary-rank officer in Ministry of Corporate Affairs, who was arrested by CBI in a bribery case on July 16, were found dead at their apartment in east Delhi's Madhu Vihar on Tuesday.

Bansal's wife Satyabala (58) and daughter Neha (28) allegedly hanged themselves from ceiling fans in two separate rooms at their residence in Nilkanth Apartments, leaving separate suicide notes, saying the 'CBI raid' caused 'great humiliation' and they did not want to live after that. They, however, held nobody responsible for their death.

"Two separate suicide notes were recovered. They said that the CBI raid caused them (the family) great humiliation in the society and they did not want to live any more. Nobody is responsible for our death," DCP (East) Rishipal Singh said, as per PTI.

Bansal's son was not present at home at the time of the incident. Neighbours told police that they had not seen him at least for the past four days.

Meanwhile, CBI spokesperson Devpreet Singh said, "We are deeply shocked and saddened by the incident. It may be mentioned here that both the deceased were neither accused nor questioned or summoned in the ongoing investigation. The matter is being looked into by the local police."

Bansal along with a private person Vishwadeep Bansal were nabbed from a hotel while bribe was allegedly being exchanged for showing favours to a private firm, CBI sources said.

CBI during its searches at eight locations in connection with the case had claimed to have recovered over Rs 56 lakh from Bansal, while Rs 16 lakh were recovered from Delhi-based middle man Vishwadeep Bansal, the agency sources said, as per PTI.

CBI sources had added that a case was registered u/s 7 & 12 of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 on the allegations that the Director General of Corporate Affairs, had been dealing with matters related to certain violations committed by a Pharmaceutical company of Mumbai Elder Pharmaceutical and the same had been detected during inspections conducted by the Regional Director, Western Region, Mumbai (Ministry of Corporate Affairs).

They said the COO of the company had allegedly sought the assistance of a Delhi-based middleman who was also working as their distributor in Delhi.

The sources said Bansal allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs 50 lakh for not recommending investigation by the SFIO on the inspection report and finally, the Delhi based middleman negotiated Rs 20 lakh.

They said the accused officer had earlier allegedly accepted Rs 11 Lakh and was demanding the balance amount of Rs 9 lakh. 

They said CBI laid a trap and the accused officer was caught red-handed while accepting the bribe of Rs 9 lakh outside a hotel. 

(With PTI inputs)