New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation has given a clean chit to former Karnataka Congress Minister KJ George and two senior IPS officers in the 2016 suicide of Bengaluru City Police Deputy SP MK Ganapathy and has filed a closure report in the case, essentially concluding that there was no case of abetment of suicide to be made against the accused, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Thursday.
The CBI had in October 2017 registered a case against George, Pranov Mohanty, then IGP Lokayuktha Bengaluru City and AM Prasad, then ADGP of State Intelligence in Bengaluru based on the orders of the SC, which had directed the local police to hand over the case to the central agency.
However, when the suicide came to light, it had caused quite a stir because the local police had not registered Ganapathy's son's complaint at the first instance. The deceased DSP's son had approached the courts, which had then directed the police to probe the case initially. Ganapathy's son had alleged that his father had held George, Mohanty and Prasad responsible for continuous harassment and had committed suicide because of that reason. In fact, Ganapathy had, in a media interview accused the three of harassing him over the years and was found hanging in a lodge hours later.
While the incident had put pressure on the Siddaramaiah-led government of the time, forcing George to resign from the State Cabinet, local police, which had first investigated the case had given the three a clean chit, which led to George being reinstated in the Cabinet. The BJP had time and again demanded George's resignation since then.
The case went to the SC after the state police clean chit and was eventually handed over to the CBI for investigation, which has now come up with the same result.