Mr Sadiq Batcha, a real estate businessman and a close associate of the former Telecom Minister, Mr A. Raja, was found dead here today.
“The family says he hanged himself,” the Chennai Police Commissioner, Mr T. Rajendran, said.
According to a late evening PTI report quoting a top State Government official, the Tamil Nadu government has decided to transfer the case to the CBI.
The body of Mr Batcha was first taken to Apollo Hospitals where the doctors declared him “brought dead”. It has since been taken to the government Royapettah Hospital.
The hospital today bustled with activity – dozens of policemen busy walking up and down and trying to keep at bay the people hanging around intrigued by the presence of a number of TV OB vans. The post-mortem examination will be done tomorrow.
CBI probe
The Central Bureau of Investigation has been interrogating Mr Batcha in connection with the 2G spectrum allocation scam.
His house was searched in December. He was last interrogated by the CBI on February 23.
In a statement to the police, Mr Batcha's wife, Bhanu, said that her husband was “unable to cope with the pressure of the CBI probe.”
However, a CBI spokesperson said in New Delhi that there had been no pressure on Mr Batcha from the CBI side.
He also said that the suicide would not affect investigations — though Mr Batcha was booked on a flight to New Delhi for another round of interrogation — as sufficient information had already been gathered from the previous rounds of questioning.
Quick rise
Mr Batcha, 47, is said to have begun his career selling saris door-to-door in Pallapatti village in Salem district.
He then moved to Perambalur, Mr Raja's hometown, where he got introduced to the future Telecom Minister apparently by Mr Arathur Arunachalam of the AIADMK.
The chemistry between Mr Batcha and Mr Raja apparently worked well because the former's real estate business grew exponentially.
In 2004, when Mr Raja was a junior minister of Environment and Forests Ministry, Mr Batcha floated Green House Promoters, with a seed capital of Rs 1 lakh. Mr Raja's wife, Parameshwari, has served on the board of this company.
Green House Promoters entered into an MoU with the tyre manufacturer MRF for selling land for a Rs 900-crore tyre project. According to several reports in the media, Green House Promoters, backed by Mr Raja, bought land cheap from villagers and sold it to MRF for a large profit.