The Additional Sessions Court of Khed Rajgurunagar in Pune has directed the police to reopen and reinvestigate a 2017 abetment to a suicide case involving industrialist Amit Kalyani, vice chairman and joint managing director of Bharat Forge.
The case, which had previously been closed following a trial court’s acceptance of a closure report filed by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), will now be reopened based on a revision appeal filed by the family of the deceased.
The case pertains to the death of Nilesh Gaikwad, an assistant manager at Kalyani Technoforge Ltd (KTFL), a company under the Kalyani Group.
On August 20, 2017, Gaikwad died by suicide, leaving behind an 11-page note in which he named Amit Kalyani. The note claimed Gaikwad had given Kalyani Rs 15 crore with the promise of receiving Rs 60 lakh in commission.
It stated that Kalyani had not returned the money, placing Gaikwad under intense pressure from company auditors, ultimately leading to his suicide. Based on the note, Gaikwad’s brother Manoj filed an FIR under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code with Chakan Police Station, then under Pune Rural Police.
According to the Gaikwad family, within days of the incident, KTFL’s then whole-time director and CEO-now its managing director-wrote to Pune Rural Police alleging that Gaikwad had siphoned off Rs 8.72 crore from the company’s bank accounts into his personal account. The case was subsequently transferred to the EOW.
Following its investigation, the EOW filed a ‘B’ summary closure report with the Khed Magistrate Court, stating the allegations were maliciously false and exonerating Kalyani. The trial court accepted this closure report in 2023, effectively closing the case.
Gaikwad’s wife Karuna and brother Manoj challenged the trial court’s decision, filing a revision application before the district court. They called the trial court’s ruling “illegal, perverse and against all the cannons of reasonableness”, alleging it lacked proper application of mind and amounted to a “travesty of justice”.
They also alleged the case was transferred to the EOW on Kalyani’s request and claimed the investigation had been conducted in a partisan manner to protect the accused.
Their petition, filed through advocate Hrishikesh Subhedar, raised several concerns, including that Amit Kalyani left the country for an extended period after Gaikwad’s death.
They questioned why former and current employees were not interrogated, who had access to the bank’s email and SMS alerts, and why an alleged fraud remained undetected between 2015 and 2017 in a publicly listed company with reputed auditors. The Gaikwads presented eight specific points before the district court.
In a recent order, Additional Sessions Judge AS Sayyad rejected the EOW’s closure report and directed police to reinvestigate the case. The court noted that Gaikwad’s suicide note named the accused and raised allegations that warranted further inquiry.
The judge observed that the initial investigation lacked thoroughness and failed to address the points raised in the suicide note and the complainant’s application.
He stated, “This Court is of the considered opinion that in order to arrive at a proper conclusion and to find out the truth behind the incident, no prejudice would be caused to prosecution or suspected accused if direction for further investigation is passed.”
The court instructed police to conduct a detailed probe on the issues raised and submit their findings at the earliest.
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