The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday registered an FIR against Chanda Kochhar, former CEO and MD of ICICI Bank, in connection with the alleged irregularities in the Rs 3,250 crore ICICI Bank-Videocon loan case. The FIR also named her husband Deepak Kochhar, MD of Nupower Renewables Pvt Ltd and Venugopal Dhoot, MD of Videocon group.
The accused were named hours after the investigative agency conducted raids at Videocon’s offices in Mumbai and Aurangabad and Nupower Renewables and Supreme Energy Pvt Ltd’s office at Nariman point in Mumbai. The case was registered under Section 120-B r/w 420 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 7, Section 13(2) r/w 13(1)(d) of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
“It was alleged that the accused sanctioned certain loans to private companies in a criminal conspiracy with others to cheat ICICI bank,” a CBI spokesperson was quoted as saying by PTI.
Besides the trio, the agency will also probe the role of present and former top ICICI Bank officials – Sandeep Bakshi, KV Kamath, NS Kannan K Ramkumar, Sonjoy Chatterjee, Homi Khusrokhan and Zarin Daruwala in connection with the case.
As first reported by The Indian Express, Dhoot provided crores of rupees to a firm he had set up with Deepak Kochhar and two relatives six months after the Videocon group got Rs 3,250 crore as loan from ICICI Bank in 2012. The amount was part of the Rs 40,000-crore loan that Videocon group secured from a consortium of 20 banks led by SBI.
Dhoot gave Rs 64 crore in 2010 through a fully owned entity to NuPower Renewables Pvt Ltd (NRPL), which he had set up with Deepak Kochhar and two of his relatives. He transferred proprietorship of the company to a trust owned by Deepak Kochhar for Rs 9 lakh, six months after he received the loan from ICICI Bank.
Almost 86 per cent of the Rs 3,250 crore loan (Rs 2,810 crore) remains unpaid. The Videocon account was declared an NPA in 2017.
Meanwhile, in October 2018, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had indicated that it has not yet given a clean chit to ICICI Bank, and its MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar, on the issue of conflict of interest, quid pro quo and corporate governance violations while extending loans.
Responding to a query from The Indian Express under the Right To Information (RTI) Act on the action taken against ICICI Bank and Chanda Kochhar, the central bank had said: “RBI is engaged with ICICI Bank in the matter and investigations by external agencies in the matter have not attained finality. As such, the disclosure at this stage of information sought is likely to harm the competitive position of the bank and may also impede the process of investigation.”
Chanda Kochhar had quit as Managing Director and CEO of ICICI Bank on October 4, six months after the first report by The Indian Express.
