Did the trauma and shock of being declared ‘bankrupt’, lead British-Indian actor Paul Bhattacharjee to take his life? TOI has a copy (order dated 09 July 2013) from the UK’s insolvency register that declared ‘actor’ ‘Gautam Paul Bhattacharjee’ bankrupt providing some clue behind his disappearance and death. His body was found on July 17, from the cliffs in East Sussex, just days after High Court of Justice, London declared him bankrupt. As per the order, Paul would have been discharged from bankruptcy on July 9, 2014, which meant creditors may have no longer pestered him about the debts after a year. However, while income tax and other debts could be written off some other categories of debts would still be binding. An officer from the Insolvency Service confirmed to TOI that HM Revenue and Customs had filed the bankruptcy petition against Paul. An acclaimed actor, Paul seems to have acted well in his real life as well, as apparently none of his friends and colleagues in the theatre had much inkling of his debts. The art world in UK was in a shock on his disappearance and death and at a loss to explain why he took the extreme step. Before filing a bankruptcy petition, the debtor given time to come to an agreement or present a proposal of payment. Paul must have been obviously aware of the imminent bankruptcy petition and what exactly transpired during the last few months will only come out once the inquest is over. The HM Revenue and Customs generally goes for bankruptcy petition if it is owed more than 2,000 pounds. Once a person is declared bankrupt, they can lose possessions of their home and investments and are not able to take credit of more than 500 pounds. It is not clear if there were other creditors who owed money from the actor. Paul has a 24-year-old son from his former wife and was most recently dating theatre personality Emma McKie.
