Former MD and CEO of ICICI Bank Chanda Kochhar arrested: CBI action in loan fraud case, Chanda’s husband Deepak also arrested

Former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar were arrested by the CBI on Friday. This arrest has been made in connection with the loan of crores of rupees given to the Videocon group against the regulation. When these loans were given, Chanda was on the post of CEO and MD in the bank. Due to these loans being NPA, the bank suffered a loss of Rs 1730 crore.

A Business Today report quoted officials as saying that the Kochhar family was called to the agency headquarters and arrested after questioning. The CBI alleged that he was evasive in his replies and was not cooperating with the investigation. Kochhar will be produced before the CBI special court in Mumbai on Saturday.

Understand the whole matter…
Fraud by giving loan to Videocon
Deepak and Chanda Kochhar are accused of defrauding Videocon through a loan given by ICICI Bank. These loans later turned into non-performing assets. In this case, CBI, ED, SFIO and Income Tax Department are investigating against Deepak and Chanda Kochhar.

This includes a loan of Rs 3,250 crore given to Videocon in the year 2012. According to the allegations, Venugopal Dhoot, former chairman of Videocon Group, invested crores of rupees in Kochhar’s company NuPower Renewables after Videocon got the loan.

The loan was sanctioned by a committee, in which Chanda Kochhar was also a member. In October 2018, Chanda had to resign over the matter.

The investigation of the case started in 2016
The probe into the matter began in 2016 after Arvind Gupta, an investor in both the firms, Videocon Group and ICICI Bank, raised concerns about loan irregularities. Gupta wrote about this to the RBI and even the Prime Minister, but his complaint went unnoticed at that time. In March 2018, another whistle-blower complained.

FIR on 24 January 2019
After the complaint made against the top management, the attention of many agencies went towards this. However, in the same month the bank issued a statement saying that it had full faith in Chanda Kochhar. The statement was made after an investigation into Chanda’s alleged role in passing off the loan to Videocon Group. The agencies continued with their investigation and after increasing pressure on the bank, it also started the investigation. After this CBI registered FIR on 24 January 2019.

Name of 4 companies including Chanda, Deepak, Dhoot
CBI registers Chanda Kochhar, Deepak Kochhar and Venugopal Dhoot of Videocon Group as well as Nupower Renewables, Supreme Energy, Videocon International Electronics Ltd and Videocon Industries Ltd under IPC sections related to criminal conspiracy, cheating and corruption in loan fraud case The accused was made in the FIR.

ED had arrested in 2020
In January 2020, the Enforcement Directorate attached assets worth more than Rs 78 crore of the Kochhar family. Following this, the agency arrested Deepak Kochhar under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after several rounds of questioning.