Cafe Coffee Day founder VG Siddhartha missing in Mangaluru: Report

Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) founder and former Karnataka Chief Minister, SM Krishna's son-in-law, V G Siddhartha, is suspected to have jumped off a bridge in Mangaluru on Monday night, the Times of India reported on Tuesday. 

According to the report, the news emerged after the Mangaluru City Police started a search for a person who had jumped off the kilometre-long Ullal bridge on Monday night.

The report said that one of the police officers confirmed that a person was suspected to have jumped off the Ullal bridge, which is built across the River Nethravathi, at 9pm. A search operation is now underway while his mobile phone is reported to be switched off.

According to the report, based on the statement of a person, reportedly a car driver, the person in question is suspected to be Siddhartha.

Siddhartha had been in the news earlier this year when news agency PTI had reported that IT company Mindtree found certain irregularities in disclosures made by him. Siddhartha had sold his stake in Mindtree to L&T, and it had taken action against him according to the law. 

"On the pledge disclosure issue, there was a disclosure that he made at certain point of time of all the pledge. At that point of time, there were some irregularities in his disclosures. Our board and audit committee evaluated it and handled it as per the rule that were prevailing at that point of time," Mindtree CEO Rostow Ravanan had said back then.

In this regard, the report said, while citing sources, a complaint against Siddhartha alleging insider trading during his stint at Mindtree was also filed with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) by an anonymous person.

The report added that the complaint filed against Siddhartha had alleged that he and his firm Coffee Day group had sold shares that were pledged before various financial institutions. 

Further, the sources told the news agency that the complaint argued that if these shares were pledged, a disclosure should have been made about these pledges under the Sebi Insider Trading Regulations and Sebi Takeover Regulations.