9-page red-ink note and walk-in psychiatry visit deepen mystery around Bengaluru businessman C J Roy’s suicide

“The counsel for the Petitioner seeks leave of this Hon’ble Court to withdraw the instant writ petition with a liberty to challenge subsequently. The memo may be considered in the interest of justice and equity,” a single-judge bench of the HC noted in the December 18 order.

No reasons were given for the withdrawal of the plea, and advocate Mahesh Choudhary, who appeared for the Confident Group in the case, did not comment in the immediate aftermath of Roy’s death on what prompted the withdrawal, but acknowledged that no fresh plea was filed subsequently.

Additional Solicitor General of India Arvind Kamath, who appeared on behalf of the Income Tax authorities, said the authorities had found evidence of “undisclosed income” linked to Roy, leading to proceedings against the real estate tycoon, who had business interests in Karnataka, Kerala and the UAE.

“For three days (since January 28), the I-T department has been conducting investigations there (at Roy’s office). I don’t know what they have done or what they have asked. I do not know the details. He has died by suicide. The I-T investigation was being done by a team headed by an additional commissioner from Kerala, Krishna Prasad,” C J Roy’s older brother C J Babu, also a businessman, told the media in Bengaluru on January 30, soon after the death.

“Other than the Income Tax issue, he had no other issues. I am very sure of it. He didn’t have threats or loans. But I don’t know what happened with Income Tax. I have to find out. Let the truth come out, let us see what happens,” Babu said in another public comment.

“I last spoke with him at 10.40 am yesterday (on the day of death). He called me twice. I will see what the office staff say,” said Babu, who has business interests in real estate and gold.

Even as a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Bengaluru police attempts to find the circumstances that triggered the death, it is apparent that the I-T proceedings alone, as implied by the comments of Roy’s older brother soon after the death, did not trigger the death.

The Confident Group and Roy had, in fact, faced several I-T proceedings in the past and won a significant favourable order in the Karnataka HC in a tax evasion case in 2016.

Latest I-T proceedings against Roy’s Confident Group

The latest I-T proceedings against the Confident Group began with a search that was conducted on December 3, 2025 by I-Tauthorities on the Confident Group’s central Bengaluru headquarters which holds the office of C J Roy, who was reportedly in Dubai at the time, and the residence of a director in the firm since 2023, Joju Kochappan, considered to be a close, trusted associate of the Confident Group chairman.

The search, according to sources, was conducted based on a clearance issued by the I-T department’s Principal Director of Investigation in Kochi. The search is reported to have yielded evidence of violations of the I-T Act and the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act 2015 by Roy and his firms.

Multiple documents linked to land purchases around Bengaluru by Confident Projects (India) Pvt Ltd, the holding company of the group, its subsidiaries and associated firms were seized in the searches along with computer servers, mobile phones, laptops and email accounts of key employees and a new chartered accountant employed by the firm since 2025.

The I-T department’s Karnataka and Goa region office in Bengaluru did not comment officially on the searches and evidence gathered in the proceedings against the Confident Group in December 2025. “This pertains to investigations by the Kochi unit,” an I-T official said.

According to sources, the I-T searches at Roy’s office and Joju Kochappan’s residence from December 3 to December 7 were carried out under a warrant authorising searches of multiple entities, including firms owned by Roy’s older brother, Babu, the Kerala-based Confident Group MD, Joseph T A, and other long-term associates.

Although the search of the director, Joju Kochappan’s residence, which resulted in the recovery of over Rs 38 lakh in cash and documents, was not part of the search warrant, the searches were reportedly conducted on the basis of Kochappan’s association with Roy.

In the petition withdrawn in the HC on December 18, Confident Group and Roy questioned the I-T department’s selective searches. The petition said that “search proceedings were admittedly carried out only against certain entities and not against all named in the warrant”.

“The warrant relied upon is a single, omnibus authorisation deployed to cover multiple distinct assessees and premises, including residential premises of persons not named therein. Further reliance on material seized under such defective authorisation would perpetuate an apparent illegality,” the HC petition that was withdrawn argued.

After the I-T department found evidence during the searches to indicate tax evasion by C J Roy, Confident Projects (India) Pvt Ltd and others, the I-T department summoned Roy because the employees of the firm indicated that only Roy could explain many documents that the I-T department had seized.

Roy agreed to appear before I-T authorities

Following the December 2025 search proceedings, the I-T department summoned Roy and he responded combatively through a letter written on December 8, saying the summons was illegal. He also claimed diplomatic immunity from I-T department proceedings by citing his credentials as the Honorary Consul of Slovakia.

Roy said in his letter to I-T authorities in Kerala that his office in Bengaluru “includes the office maintained by him in his official capacity as the honorary consul officer of the Republic of Slovakia under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 1963”.

“Any intrusion, entry, search seizure, or interference with consular premises or consular archives – whether partially or wholly situated within the assessee’s premises – is prohibited under the VCCR,” the Confident Group chairman said. He sought time till December 11 to meet I-T officials in Kerala to discuss his case.

After challenging the I-T case in the Karnataka HC in mid-December 2025 and abruptly withdrawing it, the Confident Group chairman is reported to have met with I-T officials.

A family friend who met Roy in early January during one of his visits to Bengaluru from Dubai said the Confident Group chairman had appeared anxious for several days.

Confident Group reported healthy financials

The financials filed by Roy’s holding company, Confident Projects India Pvt Ltd, with the registrar of companies in 2025 for the 2023-24 financial year indicate the firm was healthy.

The firm reported revenue of Rs 81 crore on a standalone basis in 2023-24, with a net profit of Rs 2.31 crore, compared to revenue of Rs 62 crore and a profit of Rs 1.9 crore in 2022-23. The consolidated revenue of the holding firm was recorded at Rs 152 crore in 2023-24 compared to Rs 134 crore the previous year and a net profit of Rs 4.8 crore compared to Rs 4.3 crore in 2022-23.

In the 2024 financial year, Confident Projects India Pvt Ltd received an unsecured loan of Rs 127 crore from a related party, compared with a similar loan of Rs 60 crore in 2023. The firm recorded foreign exchange outflows of Rs 6.6 crore in 2024, compared with Rs 85 crore in 2023.

Confident Projects – Residential, a Kerala based partnership firm under the Confident umbrella which was created in 2015 – with Confident Projects India Pvt Ltd, C J Roy and the company MD, Joseph T A, as partners – was reportedly the largest revenue grosser in the group through its property business in Kerala with GST filings of over Rs 200 crore in 2023-24.

Confident Projects: Residential, which builds apartments in Kerala, reportedly received a loan of Rs 15 crore from Confident Projects India Pvt Ltd in 2024. The presence of this firm in Kerala is reported to have given the I-T department jurisdiction to probe tax evasion by the Bengaluru-headquartered Confident Group.

A Confident Group associated firm, D J Projects, which is involved in real estate in Bengaluru, where Joju Kochappan is a director along with C J Roy, reported Rs 71 crore of revenue in 2024 and reported liabilities to the tune of Rs 101 crore.

Other Confident Group firms named by the IT department in its probe were Confident Airlines, Confident Resorts, Confident Entertainment and Esteem Building Technology – some of which had negligible revenues or no business at all in the 2023-24 period.

Death of Roy at his Bengaluru office on January 30

Following their searches at the office of C J Roy between December 3 and December 7, the I-T authorities had sealed a cabin of an official on the ground floor of the Confident Group headquarters.

The I-T authorities returned on January 28 to open the sealed properties within 60 days of the seizures, as mandated by I-T rules. Roy, who was staying at the five-star Concord Hotel in East Bengaluru at the time, participated in the I-T department proceedings.

According to a complaint given by the Confident Group managing director, Joseph T A, on January 30, to the Bengaluru police for legal action over the death of Roy, the Confident Group chairman arrived at the company office at 3 pm along with the MD “to give a statement to the Income Tax Department”.

According to Joseph’s written statement to the police, Roy went to his cabin and, after a while, expressed a wish to speak to his mother.

“I went outside. After about 10 minutes when I returned the security officer informed me that Dr Roy C J had instructed them not to allow anyone to enter his cabin. After about 10 minutes I went to the cabin and knocked the door but there was no response. I realized the door was locked from inside, we then broke open the door and entered the cabin,” reads the statement of complaint by Joseph T A.

“Upon entering the cabin we found Dr Roy C J sitting on his chair with blood on his shirt. We immediately felt his body had become cold. We called an ambulance,” says the complaint.

The post-mortem and forensics of the death have revealed that Roy shot himself with a small foreign-made firearm he possessed after holding the gun at a close distance from his chest. The small 6.35 mm calibre bullet pierced his chest and was lodged in his body.

The post-mortem and preliminary forensic analysis have ruled out foul play in the death, said multiple police and forensic officials involved with the investigation of the death of C J Roy.

Progress of the SIT probe into unnatural death

Following the complaint by the Confident Group MD Joseph T A for legal action into the death of the group chairman C J Roy, the Congress government in Karnataka constituted an SIT of the Bengaluru police headed by Joint Commissioner of Police (West) Vamsi Krishna, a DIG-rank officer.

One of the discoveries made by the SIT since it began its probe “into the circumstances of the death” of Roy, which has been confirmed as death by suicide, is nine pages of notes reported to have been handwritten in red ink by the Confident Group chairman.

The note was reportedly discovered at the scene of Roy’s death but was not handed over to the police until a day after the death by a senior official of the company who was at the Confident Group office, raising questions on its authenticity, sources said.

The notes written in red ink are about the nurturing of the Confident Group and its businesses by Roy, but do not spell out a specific reason or affix blame for Roy’s decision kill himself on January 30, multiple police sources said.

Another discovery made by the SIT during its probe is that Roy consulted a psychiatrist a couple of days before his death at a hospital in South Bengaluru. “It was not a consultation based on an appointment. It was a walk-in OPD consultation,” police sources said.

The SIT, which has constituted multiple teams for its probe, has questioned dozens of people in connection with the death, including office staff of the Confident Group and the MD Joseph T A, who was quizzed for an entire day on February 4.

“I cannot comment on the death because the SIT has said I must not make media statements,” the Confident Group MD said when contacted for a response.

SIT officials said that the family members of C J Roy were yet to be interviewed in the case, as they had sought time for grieving, including Roy’s older brother C J Babu, who had initially suggested that it was the I-T department pressure that took a toll, but did not make any specific mention in statements to the police.

With the complaint filed by Joseph T A not blaming anyone and the handwritten notes found after Roy’s death not apportioning blame for the death, the SIT has been restricted so far to understanding the psyche of C J Roy and the circumstances of his death, rather than the causes. “There is no evidence for abetment of suicide,” SIT sources said.

According to Roy’s family friends, the Confident Group chairman had a strained relationship with his brother, Babu, for over seven years and had only recently patched things up. “They were not communicating with each other for a while. It was only over the last month that they began talking again,” a former close business associate and friend of Roy said.

Roy is reported to have attended a birthday event for Babu in January in Bengaluru. Following the calls Roy made on the day he died, Babu, a former accountant in the defence ministry who was in Thailand for a wedding between January 28 and 30, is reported to have told Roy that he would help him on his return.

Incidentally, in March 2025, when a team of the Directorate of Enforcement, the CBI and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence carried out searches at multiple locations in Bengaluru in connection with a Dubai-origin gold smuggling racket, the premises of Babu, who operates a gold purchase firm, White Gold, and a real estate firm, White Projects, were also searched.

The ongoing SIT probe in Bengaluru is not likely to interview tax authorities over the death of Roy on account of no specific link being made in statements to the death. “I cannot comment on the investigations in this case,” SIT head Vamsi Krishna said.

The SIT is likely to submit a preliminary report outlining “the circumstances of the death” in the coming days, police sources said.