Kochhar, husband booked for taking bribe from Dhoot

NEW DELHI: The CBI has filed a case against once celebrated banker, former ICICI Bank MD & CEO Chanda Kochhar, her husband Deepak Kochhar and Videocon group managing director Venugopal N Dhoot for alleged irregularities in six high-value loans worth Rs 1,875 crore. The loans to Dhoot’s companies were sanctioned between June 2009 and October 2011.

The CBI booked Kochhar, her husband and Dhoot for criminal conspiracy (to cause loss to ICICI Bank), cheating and corruption, charges serious enough for a jail term of seven years if convicted. The allegations had led to Kochhar’s exit from India's second-largest private sector bank last year.

The agency said loans were illegally given by Kochhar to the Videocon group in lieu of financial favours and in violation of the Banking Regulation Act, RBI guidelines

and the bank’s credit policy. The Kochhars received illegal payments, including a Rs 64 crore transfer from Dhoot, for the favour, the CBI claimed.

The FIR and impending prosecution marks a dramatic fall for Kochhar, once the toast of elite circles, where she was seen as a success story and a social ‘A lister’ who commanded the attention of policy makers in Delhi.

The CBI FIR could have serious ramifications for several top bankers and financial experts, as it says their roles may have to be probed. Big names include Sandeep Bakshi, current CEO-MD of ICICI Bank, K V Kamath, chairman of New Development Bank of BRICS countries; Sonjoy Chatterjee, chairman of Goldman Sachs India; K Ramkumar, ex-executive director of ICICI Bank; N S Kannan, MD & CEO of ICICI Prudential Life; Zarin Daruwala, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank India; Rajiv Sabharwal, MD-CEO of Tata Capital, and Homi Khusrokhan, exboard member of ICICI Bank.

These officials were on various sanctioning committees of ICICI Bank when loans were granted to the Videocon group in violation of rules, leading to losses for the bank.

Kochhar, a Padma Bhushan awardee, was on the sanctioning committees that approved a loan of Rs 300 crore to Videocon International Electronics Ltd and Rs 750 crore to Videocon Industries Ltd, given on August 26, 2009 and October 31, 2011, respectively. These two companies have been named in the FIR along with Deepak Kochhar’s firms.

The CBI on Thursday raided Videocon offices at Nariman Point, Mumbai, and Aurangabad, apart from Deepak Kochhar’s companies NuPower Renewables Ltd and Supreme Energy Pvt Ltd.