BJP MP Rajesh Chudasama, father booked in Dr Chag suicide case

An FIR was registered at Veraval police station Monday night on the basis of a complaint filed by 27-year-old Hitarth. “He filed a complaint today and on the basis of it, we have registered an FIR,” Sunil Israni, police inspector incharge of Veraval police station, told The Indian Express.

The FIR, registered under IPC Sections 306 (abetment to suicide), 506(2) (criminal intimidation) and 114 (abettor present when offence is committed), names the Chudasamas as accused.

After Dr Chag, a popular physician, was found hanging in his room at Navjeevan Hospital in Veraval on February 12, a case of accidental death was registered at Veraval police station. The police had recovered a purported suicide note from Dr Chag’s room that read: “Hun Naranbhai tatha Rajeshbhaina Chudamsamana karne atmahatya karu chhu (I am committing suicide due to Naranbhai and Rajeshbhai Chudasama).”

On February 17, Hitarth had submitted an application to the Veraval police to book the MP and Naran for driving his father to suicide by not returning around Rs 1.75 crore that the father-son duo had borrowed from Dr Chag. The police had launched an inquiry into Hitarth’s application.

In March, Hitarth moved the Gujarat High Court seeking contempt proceedings against police officials of Gir Somnath for not registering an FIR instantly against the MP and his father on the basis of his application.

However, while hearing Hitarth’s petition, the state government had submitted in the High Court on April 19 that an FIR would be registered in the case.

Meanwhile, Hitarth’s legal representatives conceded before the court that a contempt jurisdiction would not be maintainable before the HC after which a division bench disposed of the petition earlier this month refusing to entertain the petition. “It may be that the applicant is aggrieved by the action of the respondent (police officials) but remedy is not the present petition, it must be before the appropriate forum,” the bench had concluded.

In his complaint to the police Monday, Hitarth reiterated what he had stated in his February 17 application. According to the complaint, from 2008, Dr Chag had lent Rajesh and Naran Rs 1.75 crore in various instalments as the physician had family relations with the MP and his father. “However, around a year ago, when my father demanded his money back from Naran as he was in need of it, Naranbhai refused to pay. Therefore, my father deposited Rs 90 lakh worth of cheque, issued by Naran Chudasama, in People’s Cooperative Bank in Veraval on November 29, 2021 but it was dishonoured,” the FIR reads.

It also quotes Hitarth as saying that the MP and his father issued threats when Dr Chag and he demanded Rs 1.75 crore back.

“Around a year ago, while I was sitting with my father in his office, Naran Chudasama, Rajesh Chudasama and his brother Ketan Chudasama walked in. That time also, as he had lent a huge amount, my father, in a stern tone, demanded the money back. I too told them that it did not behove people like them to win someone’s trust and then dupe them of such a huge amount. However, Rajesh and Naran began shouting at me and issuing death threats,” the FIR quotes Hitarth as having stated.

Phone call attempts to Rajesh for his comments went unanswered.

Earlier, more than a month after Dr Chag’s suicide, Rajesh had told media persons that his family too was in “immense shock” over the physician’s death. He had added that he would extend full cooperation in the police investigation in the case. Earlier, his father Naran had told The Indian Express in February that Dr Chag had ended his life because he had lost big money in the stock market after prices of shares of Adani Group firms plummeted and that his and his MP son’s name were being dragged “for political reasons.

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