A CBI Court Monday granted three-day custody of Venugopal Dhoot, Chairman, Videocon Group, Chanda Kochhar, former Managing Director and CEO of ICICI Bank, and her husband Deepak Kochhar, to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The agency, which arrested Dhoot earlier during the day, produced him at the court along with the Kochhar couple who were arrested last Friday.
Noting the offence was serious, the court in its order said, “…to unearth real facts in respect of alleged offence, custodial interrogation of the accused is very important as they need to confront the newly arrested accused (Dhoot) who is also not cooperating like the present arrested accused (Kochhars).”
The bank and Chanda Kochhar have been under regulatory scrutiny after The Indian Express first reported on March 29, 2018, that Videocon’s Dhoot provided crores of rupees to a firm he had set up with Deepak Kochhar and two relatives six months after his firm got a Rs 3,250 crore loan from ICICI Bank in 2012.
In 2019, the CBI had lodged an FIR against the Kochhar couple, Dhoot and firms, including Nupower Renewables and Videocon Industries, for allegedly cheating ICICI Bank of Rs 1,730 crore until March 2012. The case was filed under sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act. The agency has also added Section 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant) of the IPC in the case after their arrest, which has a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.
Venugopal Dhoot (Express File Photo by Ganesh Shirsekar)
In its FIR, the CBI had also named Supreme Energy Pvt Ltd, Videocon International Electronics Ltd (VIEL) and unknown public servants as accused. It alleged that “the accused (Chanda Kochhar) sanctioned certain loans to private companies in a criminal conspiracy with other accused to cheat ICICI Bank”.
On Monday, A Limosin, Special Public Prosecutor for the CBI, sought a three-day custody of the Kochhar couple and Dhoot and said the investigators wanted them to confront each other. He said the agency was investigating wrongful loss caused to ICICI Bank to the tune of Rs 1,730 crore in transactions of six loans sanctioned to the Videocon Group between 2009 and 2011, including two by a sanctioning committee of which Chanda Kochhar was a part of.
The CBI called Dhoot ‘the ultimate beneficiary’ of the loan and claimed there was still an outstanding amount from the loan of Rs 1,033 crore against Videocon.
The agency has claimed that between June 2009 and October 2011, ICICI Bank had sanctioned term loans (Rupee Term Loans or RTLs) of Rs 1,875 crore to six companies of the Videocon Group. “…it is further alleged that on 26.04.2012, the existing outstanding of the six RTL accounts were adjusted in RTL of Rs 1,730 crore, sanctioned to VIL (Videocon Industries Limited) under refinance of domestic debt. The account of VIL was declared NPA with effect from 30.06.2017. Present outstanding in the account is Rs 1,033 crore,” the CBI remand plea said.
Opposing the remand plea, lawyers for Kocchars submitted that the loan amount in the transactions in question were repaid
“The FIR was filed by the CBI in 2019. Deepak Kochhar was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate and spent six months in jail before being granted bail by the Bombay High Court. The Supreme Court said it did not want to interfere in the High Court order. The CBI maintained a silence for so many years and it is most unfortunate the agency has arrested them (Kochhars) when their only son’s marriage is fixed for January 15. This is inhuman,” said Vikram Chaudhri, the lawyer representing the Kochhar couple, opposing the CBI remand plea.
Chaudhri and lawyer Amit Desai representing the Kochhars also submitted that no interrogation had taken place in the past two days while the two were in CBI custody. “Deepak Kochhar had carried 2,500 pages of documents anticipating the questions they would be asked as they were summoned on Friday by the CBI. Chanda Kochhar had carried notes on the functioning of the bank. They were not asked to submit any papers. This shows there was a preconceived intent to arrest them without any interrogation and then claim they were not cooperating,” Desai submitted. He also said the loans in question were repaid in 2012, much before the FIR was filed.
Dhoot’s lawyer SS Ladda submitted the loans were repaid and that he had cooperated with the probe by remaining present before the CBI on December 22. “When he was summoned again last week, he had himself written to the CBI that he had health issues and would appear before the agency on Monday. Today, he took a flight from Aurangabad and went to the agency and he was arrested,” Dhoot’s lawyer said.
The CBI said the amount was part of the Rs 40,000-crore loan that the Videocon Group secured from a consortium of 20 banks led by SBI. Almost 86 per cent of the Rs 3,250 crore loan (Rs 2,810 crore) remained unpaid. The Videocon account was declared an NPA in 2017.
According to the CBI, the sanctioning committee of ICICI Bank, which included Chanda Kochhar, had on August 26, 2009, approved a loan of Rs 300 crore to Videocon International Electronics Ltd (VIEL) “in contravention of the rules and policy”.
Kochhar, the CBI alleged, “dishonestly” abused her official position to disburse this loan on September 7, 2008 and the very next day, her husband’s firm Nupower Renewables received Rs 64 crore from Videocon Industries Ltd (VIL) to acquire its first power plant.
“…Chanda Kochhar got illegal gratification/ undue benefit through her husband from Dhoot for sanctioning RTL (rupee term loan) of Rs 300 crore to M/s VIEL,” the agency said in its FIR.
Special Judge AS Sayyad sent the three to CBI custody till Wednesday, December 28.
