Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Six days ahead of their son’s marriage on January 15, ICICI Bank’s high-profile former Managing Director and CEO Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar, arrested in a bank loan case in December 2022, got temporary bail from the Bombay High Court on Monday.
Terming their arrests by the CBI in loan cases as “not in accordance with the law”, the Bombay High Court granted them bail in a loan case involving the Videocon Group and also directed them to surrender their passports to the CBI.
A division bench comprising Justice Revati Mohite-Dere and Justice Prithviraj K Chavan said the petitioners’ arrest was “not in accordance with the provisions of law and this warrants their release…it is not in compliance with section 41 A of the Criminal Procedure Code.”
The High Court ordered their release on a cash bail of Rs 1 lakh each, and asked them to cooperate with the probe and attend the CBI office as and when summoned.
The Kochhars challenged their arrests last month by the CBI in connection with the bank loan case and termed it “illegal” on the ground that no sanction was obtained before their arrest.
The probe agency had, in the FIR registered in 2019 under the IPC sections related to criminal conspiracy and the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, named as accused the Kochhars, Videocon Group’ Venugopal Dhoot, along with Nupower Renewables (NRL), a company Deepak Kochhar managed, Supreme Energy, Videocon International Electronics Ltd, and Videocon Industries Limited.
The CBI alleged that the ICICI Bank, while Chanda Kochhar was its MD and CEO, sanctioned credit facilities to the tune of Rs 3,250 crore to the companies of Videocon Group in violation of the Banking Regulation Act, RBI guidelines, and the credit policy of the bank.
As a part of a quid pro quo, Dhoot made an investment of Rs 64 crore in Nupower Renewables through Supreme Energy Pvt Ltd (SEPL) and transferred SEPL to Pinnacle Energy Trust managed by Deepak Kochhar through a circuitous route between 2010 and 2012, the FIR alleged.