Mangaluru, Jul 31: After several hours of search massive operation in Netravati River, the body of V G Siddhartha, founder-chairman of the chain of Cafe Coffee Day outlets and son-in-law of former chief minister S M Krishna, was found on Wednesday morning.
The corpse was discovered on the banks of the river near Hoige Bazar by fishermen in the morning. It was later shifted to Wenlock mortuary for a post mortem.
Siddhartha was missing since Monday night, and was last seen from the bridge over the Netravati river near Mangaluru.
He had purportedly written a letter to the board, alleging pressure from a private equity partner and harassment by Income Tax officials.
Founded in 1996, the company’s cafe network stands at 1,751 stores spread across 243 cities in India. The company, Coffee Day Enterprises, in which Siddhartha owned a 53% stake, had a revenue of Rs 4,466.79 crore in FY19 against a net profit of Rs 127.51 crore.
However, growing debt might have been causing problems over the years, sources say. Several people close to him suggest that his sale of shares in IT-company MindTree was part of his debt offloading process.
Sringeri MLA Raje Gowda said the coffee czar was harassed by the officials of the Income Tax Department. He had become mentally weak after the raids conducted by Income Tax department, the legislator said.
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