BackCharudatta Deshpande case: FIR against Tata Steel official
Police registers case against Prabhat Sharma, deputy head of corporate communications at Tata Steel
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Mumbai: After four months of investigations, the Vasai Road police in Mumbai has registered a case of abetment to suicide for the death of Charudatta Deshpande (57), who headed the communications and corporate affairs department of Tata Steel Ltd till he quit in April this year, according to a report in Mid Day on Tuesday.
The case was registered based on a complaint that has been filed against Prabhat Sharma, deputy head of corporate communications and corporate affairs, Tata Steel, Jamshedpur, under Section 306 for abetment of suicide.
The 57-year-old Deshpande was found dead in his Vasai house in suburban Mumbai on 28 June.
The 12-page complaint was filed by Indrajit Gupta, former editor of Forbes India magazine, which published an article on Tata Steel in its April 2013 edition.
Mint had reviewed the complaint copy.
In the complaint, Gupta had referred to a rogue group of employees who had become a law unto themselves and had started to run amok.
“Among them was Prabhat Sharma, who was Charu’s deputy in the corporate affairs department. Before Charu joined, Prabhat Sharma had harboured ambitions that he would one day be promoted as head. But that seemed to have been scuttled with Charu’s entry," the complaint read.
The complaint said that local journalists in Jharkhand point out that Prabhat Sharma is seldom averse to using his influence with the police and senior editors to threaten local journalists not to carry any adverse reports on Tata Steel.
“He and some others have created an environment where journalists are unable to report freely. This is the environment that Charu hoped to transform by inducting professionals—and changing the level of engagement with media and other stakeholders," the complaint said.
“Prabhat Sharma perceived this as a clear encroachment of his turf and started to discredit Charu’s performance. The fact that he was an outsider and a not an aggressive person by nature, Charu didn’t find it easy to deal with such hostility," it added.
“Tata Steel is aware of the FIR (first information report) filed by the Vasai Police in the matter relating to the unfortunate demise of its former employee, Charudatta Deshpande. The company has been fully and openly cooperating with the investigation, and will continue to assist the legal process," Tata Steel spokesperson said.
Deshpande had worked with The Economic Times as a senior editor and headed the corporate communications function in ICICI Bank Ltd, Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd and Tata Steel. He resigned from Tata Steel after Forbes carried an article in its 15 April issue highlighting the problems faced by the steel maker.
In early June, Tata Steel had set up an internal committee to ascertain facts relating to death of Deshpande. It said the committee had the mandate to submit its findings to the board of Tata Steel within two months.
On 2 July, Tata Steel set up a committee headed by Ishaat Hussain, non-executive director of Tata Steel, with members including chief ethics officer of the Tata group Mukund Rajan, chief human resources officer N.S. Rajan, the group’s general counsel, Bharat Vasani and O.P. Bhatt, an independent director of the company.
The spokesperson said that the internal inquiry committee has submitted its report to the board. But he did not share the report with Mint.
Gupta said the FIR would give more ability to the police to summon lot more people as part of the investigation and a charge sheet could be drawn up based on the findings.
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