N Vaghul defended Chanda Kochhar saying that he “can’t imagine she would be party to a transaction that would have a shadow of doubt.”
Former Chairman ICICI Bank N Vaghul defended the bank's current Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, and clarified that no new loans have been issued to Videocon Group since 2012.
In an interview with CNBC-TV 18, Vaghul defended ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar, saying that he "can’t imagine she would be party to a transaction that would have a shadow of doubt."
The former ICICI Chairman also clarified that the Rs 3,250-crore loan was in fact the "exposure" of ICICI Bank at the time. This amount given to the Videocon Group was in fact a consolidated sum.
The consolidation was initiated by State Bank of India, along with 20 other banks, in 2012, and ICICI Bank was only one of the banks in the consortium.
He also said that the loans were active till 2017. It was only in 2017 that these loans became non-performing after the relevant payment deadlines were missed.
Commenting on ICICI Bank's Board of Directors and Chairman MK Sharma giving a clean chit to Chanda Kochhar, Vaghul said: “If the Mr Sharma has issued a statement saying that no conflict of interest, no quid pro quo and the relevant disclosures were made, the board must have examined the whole matter. As far I know Mr Sharma, whatever he does, he does thoroughly.”
The Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax Department are currently investigating the case and are in the process of collecting relevant files and papers from the Reserve Bank of India and the Securities and Exchange Board of India.
The CBI has questioned a few ICICI Bank officials as part of its preliminary inquiry to find out if any quid pro quo was involved in the bank issuing the loan to the Venugopal Dhoot-led company.