Bansal suicide: SC notice to Centre, CBI on plea for SIT probe

The Supreme Court today entertained a plea seeking SIT probe into the controversial suicide case of senior bureaucrat B K Bansal but warned against politicising the "sensitive" case in which the officer had come under the scanner of CBI for allegedly accepting bribe.
"Don't politicise the case. It's a sensitive matter," a bench of justices J S Khehar and Arun Misra told the senior counsel who had appeared in the matter.
Bansal, a former Director General of Corporate Affairs, was facing a CBI probe in a corruption case, he and his son allegedly committed suicide at their East Delhi residence on September 27.

The development had come nearly two months after his wife and daughter committed suicide by hanging themselves from ceiling fans at their residence.
The bench issued notice to the Centre and CBI on a plea filed by former bureaucrat E A S Sarma, who sought setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising officers with impeccable integrity to probe the incident.
Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves appearing for Sarma said that SIT probe is needed in the matter as there were serious allegations of torture against CBI officials.

He also sought prosecution of those allegedly involved in the suicide of Bansal and his family.

Bansal's wife and daughter had left separate suicide notes, saying the "CBI raid" caused them "great humiliation" and they did not want to live after that.
They had, however, held nobody responsible for their death.
Bansal, an additional secretary-rank officer in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, was arrested by CBI on July 16 for allegedly accepting bribe from a prominent pharmaceutical company.
CBI had carried out searches at eight locations in connection with the case during which the agency had claimed to have made cash recoveries. He was later arrested but released on bail.