The Bombay High Court today denied an urgent hearing requested by former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar, who was arrested by the CBI on Friday along with her husband Deepak Kochhar in a case involving alleged irregularities in a loan provided to the Videocon Group when she was CEO of the private sector bank.
Chanda Kochhar and Deepak Kochhar had petitioned the Bombay High Court to overturn a Mumbai court’s order of three days’ CBI custody. The investigation agency is presently questioning them.
The CBI arrested Videocon Group Chairman Venugopal Dhoot in the ICICI debt case yesterday.
The Kochhars and Mr Dhoot were named as accused in the FIR registered in 2019 under IPC sections related to criminal conspiracy and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, along with companies NuPower Renewables (NRL) managed by Deepak Kochhar, Supreme Energy, Videocon International Electronics Ltd, and Videocon Industries Limited.
According to the accusations in the case, Venugopal Dhoot reportedly invested 64 crore in NuPower Renewables as part of the deal months after the Videocon firm received the loan from the bank between 2010 and 2012.
According to the CBI, the loan was approved by a committee on which Ms Kochhar served. According to the agency, she abused her position and “got illegal gratification/undue benefit from Dhoot for sanctioning 300 crore to Videocon through her husband.”
It was part of a 40,000 crore loan obtained by Videocon from a group of 20 banks led by the State Bank of India.
Chanda Kochhar, on the other hand, has denied any misconduct.
