Over a month earlier than his now confirmed loss of life by suicide, amid an Revenue Tax (I-T) division probe at his central Bengaluru workplace, C J Roy, 57, a flamboyant, high-profile, actual property businessman, had approached the Karnataka Excessive Court docket with a plea to cease tax evasion proceedings initiated in opposition to him by Revenue Tax authorities in Kerala.
Inside two days of submitting the petition on December 16, 2025, looking for an order declaring a search and seizure operation carried out by I-T authorities on December 3, 2025, at his Bengaluru workplace and different properties as “unlawful, arbitrary and with out jurisdiction”, the chairman of the Assured Group withdrew his plea on December 18.
“The counsel for the Petitioner seeks go away of this Hon’ble Court docket to withdraw the moment writ petition with a liberty to problem subsequently. The memo could also be thought-about within the curiosity of justice and fairness,” a single-judge bench of the HC famous within the December 18 order.
No causes got for the withdrawal of the plea, and advocate Mahesh Choudhary, who appeared for the Assured Group within the case, didn’t remark within the rapid aftermath of Roy’s loss of life on what prompted the withdrawal, however acknowledged that no recent plea was filed subsequently.
Extra Solicitor Basic of India Arvind Kamath, who appeared on behalf of the Revenue Tax authorities, mentioned the authorities had discovered proof of “undisclosed earnings” linked to Roy, resulting in proceedings in opposition to the actual property tycoon, who had enterprise pursuits in Karnataka, Kerala and the UAE.
“For 3 days (since January 28), the I-T division has been conducting investigations there (at Roy’s workplace). I don’t know what they’ve executed or what they’ve requested. I have no idea the small print. He has died by suicide. The I-T investigation was being executed by a group headed by an extra commissioner from Kerala, Krishna Prasad,” C J Roy’s older brother C J Babu, additionally a businessman, advised the media in Bengaluru on January 30, quickly after the loss of life.
“Apart from the Revenue Tax challenge, he had no different points. I’m very certain of it. He didn’t have threats or loans. However I don’t know what occurred with Revenue Tax. I’ve to search out out. Let the reality come out, allow us to see what occurs,” Babu mentioned in one other public remark.
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“I final spoke with him at 10.40 am yesterday (on the day of loss of life). He known as me twice. I’ll see what the workplace employees say,” mentioned Babu, who has enterprise pursuits in actual property and gold.
Whilst a Particular Investigation Workforce (SIT) of the Bengaluru police makes an attempt to search out the circumstances that triggered the loss of life, it’s obvious that the I-T proceedings alone, as implied by the feedback of Roy’s older brother quickly after the loss of life, didn’t set off the loss of life.
The Assured Group and Roy had, in reality, confronted a number of I-T proceedings previously and received a big beneficial order within the Karnataka HC in a tax evasion case in 2016.
Newest I-T proceedings in opposition to Roy’s Assured Group
The newest I-T proceedings in opposition to the Assured Group started with a search that was carried out on December 3, 2025 by I-Tauthorities on the Assured Group’s central Bengaluru headquarters which holds the workplace of C J Roy, who was reportedly in Dubai on the time, and the residence of a director within the agency since 2023, Joju Kochappan, thought-about to be a detailed, trusted affiliate of the Assured Group chairman.
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The search, based on sources, was carried out based mostly on a clearance issued by the I-T division’s Principal Director of Investigation in Kochi. The search is reported to have yielded proof of violations of the I-T Act and the Black Cash (Undisclosed Overseas Revenue and Property) and Imposition of Tax Act 2015 by Roy and his companies.
A number of paperwork linked to land purchases round Bengaluru by Assured Tasks (India) Pvt Ltd, the holding firm of the group, its subsidiaries and related companies had been seized within the searches together with laptop servers, cell phones, laptops and electronic mail accounts of key staff and a brand new chartered accountant employed by the agency since 2025.
The I-T division’s Karnataka and Goa area workplace in Bengaluru didn’t remark formally on the searches and proof gathered within the proceedings in opposition to the Assured Group in December 2025. “This pertains to investigations by the Kochi unit,” an I-T official mentioned.
In line with sources, the I-T searches at Roy’s workplace and Joju Kochappan’s residence from December 3 to December 7 had been carried out beneath a warrant authorising searches of a number of entities, together with companies owned by Roy’s older brother, Babu, the Kerala-based Assured Group MD, Joseph T A, and different long-term associates.
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Though the search of the director, Joju Kochappan’s residence, which resulted within the restoration of over Rs 38 lakh in money and paperwork, was not a part of the search warrant, the searches had been reportedly carried out on the idea of Kochappan’s affiliation with Roy.
Within the petition withdrawn within the HC on December 18, Assured Group and Roy questioned the I-T division’s selective searches. The petition mentioned that “search proceedings had been admittedly carried out solely in opposition to sure entities and never in opposition to all named within the warrant”.
“The warrant relied upon is a single, omnibus authorisation deployed to cowl a number of distinct assessees and premises, together with residential premises of individuals not named therein. Additional reliance on materials seized beneath such faulty authorisation would perpetuate an obvious illegality,” the HC petition that was withdrawn argued.
After the I-T division discovered proof through the searches to point tax evasion by C J Roy, Assured Tasks (India) Pvt Ltd and others, the I-T division summoned Roy as a result of the staff of the agency indicated that solely Roy might clarify many paperwork that the I-T division had seized.
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Roy agreed to seem earlier than I-T authorities
Following the December 2025 search proceedings, the I-T division summoned Roy and he responded combatively via a letter written on December 8, saying the summons was unlawful. He additionally claimed diplomatic immunity from I-T division proceedings by citing his credentials because the Honorary Consul of Slovakia.
Roy mentioned in his letter to I-T authorities in Kerala that his workplace in Bengaluru “contains the workplace maintained by him in his official capability because the honorary consul officer of the Republic of Slovakia beneath the Vienna Conference on Consular Relations, 1963”.
“Any intrusion, entry, search seizure, or interference with consular premises or consular archives – whether or not partially or wholly located inside the assessee’s premises – is prohibited beneath the VCCR,” the Assured Group chairman mentioned. He sought time until December 11 to fulfill I-T officers in Kerala to debate his case.
After difficult the I-T case within the Karnataka HC in mid-December 2025 and abruptly withdrawing it, the Assured Group chairman is reported to have met with I-T officers.
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A household pal who met Roy in early January throughout certainly one of his visits to Bengaluru from Dubai mentioned the Assured Group chairman had appeared anxious for a number of days.
Assured Group reported wholesome financials
The financials filed by Roy’s holding firm, Assured Tasks India Pvt Ltd, with the registrar of firms in 2025 for the 2023-24 monetary yr point out the agency was wholesome.
The agency reported income of Rs 81 crore on a standalone foundation in 2023-24, with a web revenue of Rs 2.31 crore, in comparison with income of Rs 62 crore and a revenue of Rs 1.9 crore in 2022-23. The consolidated income of the holding agency was recorded at Rs 152 crore in 2023-24 in comparison with Rs 134 crore the earlier yr and a web revenue of Rs 4.8 crore in comparison with Rs 4.3 crore in 2022-23.
Within the 2024 monetary yr, Assured Tasks India Pvt Ltd obtained an unsecured mortgage of Rs 127 crore from a associated celebration, in contrast with the same mortgage of Rs 60 crore in 2023. The agency recorded overseas change outflows of Rs 6.6 crore in 2024, in contrast with Rs 85 crore in 2023.
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Assured Tasks – Residential, a Kerala based mostly partnership agency beneath the Assured umbrella which was created in 2015 – with Assured Tasks India Pvt Ltd, C J Roy and the corporate MD, Joseph T A, as companions – was reportedly the biggest income grosser within the group via its property enterprise in Kerala with GST filings of over Rs 200 crore in 2023-24.
Assured Tasks: Residential, which builds flats in Kerala, reportedly obtained a mortgage of Rs 15 crore from Assured Tasks India Pvt Ltd in 2024. The presence of this agency in Kerala is reported to have given the I-T division jurisdiction to probe tax evasion by the Bengaluru-headquartered Assured Group.
A Assured Group related agency, D J Tasks, which is concerned in actual property in Bengaluru, the place Joju Kochappan is a director together with C J Roy, reported Rs 71 crore of income in 2024 and reported liabilities to the tune of Rs 101 crore.
Different Assured Group companies named by the IT division in its probe had been Assured Airways, Assured Resorts, Assured Leisure and Esteem Constructing Expertise – a few of which had negligible revenues or no enterprise in any respect within the 2023-24 interval.
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Loss of life of Roy at his Bengaluru workplace on January 30
Following their searches on the workplace of C J Roy between December 3 and December 7, the I-T authorities had sealed a cabin of an official on the bottom ground of the Assured Group headquarters.
The I-T authorities returned on January 28 to open the sealed properties inside 60 days of the seizures, as mandated by I-T guidelines. Roy, who was staying on the five-star Harmony Lodge in East Bengaluru on the time, participated within the I-T division proceedings.
In line with a grievance given by the Assured Group managing director, Joseph T A, on January 30, to the Bengaluru police for authorized motion over the loss of life of Roy, the Assured Group chairman arrived on the firm workplace at 3 pm together with the MD “to present a press release to the Revenue Tax Division”.
In line with Joseph’s written assertion to the police, Roy went to his cabin and, after some time, expressed a want to communicate to his mom.
“I went outdoors. After about 10 minutes after I returned the safety officer knowledgeable me that Dr Roy C J had instructed them to not permit anybody to enter his cabin. After about 10 minutes I went to the cabin and knocked the door however there was no response. I noticed the door was locked from inside, we then broke open the door and entered the cabin,” reads the assertion of grievance by Joseph T A.
“Upon coming into the cabin we discovered Dr Roy C J sitting on his chair with blood on his shirt. We instantly felt his physique had turn into chilly. We known as an ambulance,” says the grievance.
The autopsy and forensics of the loss of life have revealed that Roy shot himself with a small foreign-made firearm he possessed after holding the gun at a detailed distance from his chest. The small 6.35 mm calibre bullet pierced his chest and was lodged in his physique.
The autopsy and preliminary forensic evaluation have dominated out foul play within the loss of life, mentioned a number of police and forensic officers concerned with the investigation of the loss of life of C J Roy.
Progress of the SIT probe into unnatural loss of life
Following the grievance by the Assured Group MD Joseph T A for authorized motion into the loss of life of the group chairman C J Roy, the Congress authorities in Karnataka constituted an SIT of the Bengaluru police headed by Joint Commissioner of Police (West) Vamsi Krishna, a DIG-rank officer.
One of many discoveries made by the SIT because it started its probe “into the circumstances of the loss of life” of Roy, which has been confirmed as loss of life by suicide, is 9 pages of notes reported to have been handwritten in crimson ink by the Assured Group chairman.
The be aware was reportedly found on the scene of Roy’s loss of life however was not handed over to the police till a day after the loss of life by a senior official of the corporate who was on the Assured Group workplace, elevating questions on its authenticity, sources mentioned.
The notes written in crimson ink are concerning the nurturing of the Assured Group and its companies by Roy, however don’t spell out a selected motive or affix blame for Roy’s resolution kill himself on January 30, a number of police sources mentioned.
One other discovery made by the SIT throughout its probe is that Roy consulted a psychiatrist a few days earlier than his loss of life at a hospital in South Bengaluru. “It was not a session based mostly on an appointment. It was a walk-in OPD session,” police sources mentioned.
The SIT, which has constituted a number of groups for its probe, has questioned dozens of individuals in reference to the loss of life, together with workplace employees of the Assured Group and the MD Joseph T A, who was quizzed for a whole day on February 4.
“I can’t touch upon the loss of life as a result of the SIT has mentioned I have to not make media statements,” the Assured Group MD mentioned when contacted for a response.
SIT officers mentioned that the members of the family of C J Roy had been but to be interviewed within the case, as they’d sought time for grieving, together with Roy’s older brother C J Babu, who had initially steered that it was the I-T division stress that took a toll, however didn’t make any particular point out in statements to the police.
With the grievance filed by Joseph T A not blaming anybody and the handwritten notes discovered after Roy’s loss of life not apportioning blame for the loss of life, the SIT has been restricted to this point to understanding the psyche of C J Roy and the circumstances of his loss of life, slightly than the causes. “There is no such thing as a proof for abetment of suicide,” SIT sources mentioned.
In line with Roy’s household pals, the Assured Group chairman had a strained relationship along with his brother, Babu, for over seven years and had solely just lately patched issues up. “They weren’t speaking with one another for some time. It was solely during the last month that they started speaking once more,” a former shut enterprise affiliate and pal of Roy mentioned.
Roy is reported to have attended a birthday occasion for Babu in January in Bengaluru. Following the calls Roy made on the day he died, Babu, a former accountant within the defence ministry who was in Thailand for a marriage between January 28 and 30, is reported to have advised Roy that he would assist him on his return.
By the way, in March 2025, when a group of the Directorate of Enforcement, the CBI and the Directorate of Income Intelligence carried out searches at a number of areas in Bengaluru in reference to a Dubai-origin gold smuggling racket, the premises of Babu, who operates a gold buy agency, White Gold, and an actual property agency, White Tasks, had been additionally searched.
The continuing SIT probe in Bengaluru is just not more likely to interview tax authorities over the loss of life of Roy on account of no particular hyperlink being made in statements to the loss of life. “I can’t touch upon the investigations on this case,” SIT head Vamsi Krishna mentioned.
The SIT is more likely to submit a preliminary report outlining “the circumstances of the loss of life” within the coming days, police sources mentioned.
