ICICI Bank Loan Scam: CBI Files Charge Sheet Against Kochhars & Dhoot

The CBI has filed a charge sheet in a Rs 3,250 crore loan fraud case on Saturday against Chanda Kochhar, her husband Deepak Kochhar, and Videocon Group founder Venugopal Dhoot.

According to the agency, the charge sheet was filed under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 409 (criminal breach of trust) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), as well as provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The CBI has listed nine entities, including companies and individuals.

The CBI has moved to file its final report before a Mumbai’s special court without the mandatory necessity of authorization to prosecute Chanda Kochhar from ICICI Bank.

They stated that a letter was issued to the bank requesting the sanction, but that their response is still pending.

In general, the special court awaits the sanction before proceeding with taking cognizance of the charge sheet and, if warranted, commencing the trial.

According to officials, the special CBI court has yet to take cognizance of the charge sheet.

They stated that if a sanction to prosecute is denied, the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act will not apply.

The Kochhars and Dhoot were apprehended by the agency in December of last year.

In opposition to the CBI’s remand request, senior counsel Amit Desai, representing the Kochhars, called to the court’s attention a letter ICICI Bank made to the CBI in July 2021 claiming that it had suffered no wrongful loss in any of the transactions in question.

On January 9, the Bombay High Court granted the couple bail, stating that the CBI’s arrest was “casual, mechanical, and perfunctory, and clearly without application of mind.”

The HC remarked that in the current case, the grounds for arrest are simply described as non-cooperation and failure to provide full and accurate disclosure.

“The reason given in the arrest memos to arrest the petitioners, having regard to the facts as stated aforesaid, appears to us to be casual, mechanical, and perfunctory, clearly lacking in application of mind,” the court concluded.

The judgement ruled that the Kochhars’ arrest violated Section 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), which requires notice for presence before the police officer in question.

The Kochhars and Dhoot are named as defendants in the CBI’s FIR, along with Nupower Renewables (NRL) controlled by Deepak Kochhar, Supreme Energy, Videocon International Electronics Limited, and Videocon Industries Limited.

The agency claims that ICICI Bank granted credit facilities of Rs 3,250 crore to companies in the Videocon Group promoted by Dhoot in violation of the Banking Regulation Act, RBI guidelines, and the bank’s credit policy.

It also claimed that Dhoot invested Rs 64 crore in Nupower Renewables through Supreme Energy Private Limited (SEPL) and transferred SEPL to Pinnacle Energy Trust managed by Deepak Kochhar via a convoluted manner between 2010 and 2012.