Former ICICI Bank Managing Director Chanda Kochhar Granted Formal Bail in Money Laundering Case

Former ICICI Bank Managing Director and CEO, Chanda Kochhar, appeared before a special court on Friday in connection with the multi-crore money laundering scam and was granted formal bail on a cash surety of Rs 5 lakh.

Her husband and co-accused in the case - Deepak Kochhar – was produced via video conference, while another accused, the founder of Videocon Industries Ltd, VN Dhoot, failed to appear as the court's summons were not served on him.

Special Judge Abhijeet Nandgaonkar had on January 30 taken cognisance of the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) investigation complaint against all the accused in the case, and summoned them for the offences under section 4 (money laundering) of the PMLA.

Accordingly, Kochhar appeared before a special court and filed for bail through her lawyer Vijay Aggarwal. The court allowed the application on a cash surety of Rs 5 lakh. Advocate Rahul Aggarwal appeared on behalf of Deepak.

The case has now been adjourned to March 12.

Former ICICI Bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar had prima facie misused her official position in granting loans to accused Videocon group of companies and received illegal gratification, through her husband Deepak Kochhar, the court had earlier observed while taking cognisance ED's complaint.

The ED's probe is based on a case registered CBI in January 2019 into alleged irregularities in the grant of six 'high-value' loans worth around Rs 1,575 crore to five firms of the Videocon Group between June 2009 and October 2011. The loans were granted in contravention of the rules and policy of sanctioning committee, the ED has alleged.

These loans were later termed as non-performing assets resulting in wrongful loss to ICICI bank and wrongful gain to the borrowers and accused persons, the ED says in their complaint, adding, that the total misappropriation is to the tune of Rs.1,730 crore as on April 26, 2012.

ED's investigation states that on September 9, 2009, when the first loan amount of Rs.300 crores was disbursed to Videocon, on the very next day V.N. Dhoot transferred an amount of Rs.64 crores to NuPower Renewables Pvt Ltd (NRPL) managed by Kochhar's husband, Deepak, through his company SEPL.

The agency has alleged that NRPL was incorporated on December 24, 2008 with Deepak Kochhar, V.N. Dhoot and Saurabha Dhoot as its first directors. Before resigning from the company, a year later, Dhoot allotted 19,97,500 warrants to Deepak Kochhar at the rate of Rs.10/- per warrant, on an initial payment of Rs.1/- per warrant.

Subsequently, on June 6, 2009 shares of NRPL held by Dhoot and Kochhar were transferred to SEPL, which became 95% shareholder of NRPL. SEPL was another company incorporated with Dhoot as its director in 2008, however, a year later he sold his shares to Pinnacle Energy (PE) managed by Deepak Kochhar.

Kochhar started her career with the bank in 1984 and rose to the rank of MD & CEO in 2009. The complaint states that despite knowing that Deepak Kochhar is closely associated with Dhoot, Chairman and Managing Director of Videocon Industries Ltd., Kochhar had neither disclosed this fact nor recused herself from the sanctioning committee of ICICI bank while sanctioning the loan to Videocon.

It is alleged that Kochhar's flat situated at CCI, in Mumbai, was purchased from the proceeds of crime for a mere Rs. 11 lakh when the actual value of the property was Rs. 5 crore.