Of these, two transactions involve money received by Deepak from his wife and former ICICI bank chief Chanda Kochhar and his sister, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Before Deepak Kochhar’s arrest on Monday, the federal agency had asked Deepak Kochhar to explain the nine aforementioned transactions. These include a receipt for Rs 2.2 crores from Chanda Kochhar on Nov 19, 2010 which was transferred to CL-Trust Estate JV (or Turf Estate) on Nov 23, 2010. And a receipt for Rs 1.4 crores (appox) from Karna Varuna Jaiprakash (Chanda Kochhar’s sister) on January 14, 2016.
These two transactions were carried out from Deepak Kochhar’s HDFC bank account in Mumbai. The persons named above told ET that ED had sought clarification on these two transactions, among others, from Deepak Kochhar.
Another transaction involving the HDFC Mumbai bank account of Deepak Kochhar included a receipt for one crore of rupees from Daisy Finvest Private Limited on February 20, 2014. Daisy Finvest is a subsidiary company of Deepak Kochhar’s M / s Pacific Capital.
The other six transactions that are being investigated by the ED, as part of its money laundering investigation involving Kochhars, include the receipt and transfer of almost Rs 4 crore by the three Deepak Kochhar companies.
These are: M / s Pacific Capital Services Private Limited (PCSPL); M / s Opel Properties Private Limited (OPPL) and NuPower Renewables.
Transactions made from ICICI bank of Deepak Kochhar, Mumbai account in which an amount of Rs 65,000 was received from PCSPL in July 2008 is being investigated. Another amount of Rs 20 lakhs received from Opel Properties on July 2, 2008 was transferred to Nupower on July 4, 2008, which is under ED’s scan.
Additionally, banking transactions made from Deepak Kochhar’s DBS Bank, Mumbai, are also under the radar, the people quoted above said.
These include an amount of Rs 40 lakhs received from Opel Properties Limited in June 2009, of which Rs 39 lakhs were transferred to NRL on June 27, 2009.
Another receipt for Rs 75,000 from Opel Properties Limited in January 2010 also remains unexplained.
An amount of Rs 2 million received from Opel Properties Limited in March 2010 and transferred to NRL on the same day is also under investigation. In addition, an amount of Rs 40 lakhs (appox) transferred to Opel Properties Pvt Ltd in March 2010 is under consideration.
Based on Deepak Kochhar’s statement, recorded in July by ED, the federal agency had sent two reminders to Deepak Kochhar in August seeking details of the “list of companies / entities / persons” of which he was an authorized signatory of bank accounts. and the period during which it remained as an authorized signatory.
Additionally, ED had sought details of all transactions conducted by Deepak Kochhar with his company M / s Pacific Services Private Limited (PCSPL) and its subsidiary (Pacific) M / s Opel Properties Private Limited (OPPL). The agency had sought the date of the transactions, the amount involved, and the purpose of those transactions.
In addition, details were requested of nine transactions carried out by Deepak Kochhar from his DBS Bank account with OPPL, PCSPL and NRPL (Nupower Renewables Private Limited) during the period from June 2009 to March 2010.
The ED had registered a money laundering case in February last year, days after the Central Bureau of Investigations hired the managing director of Kochhars and Videocon Group, Venugopal Dhoot, for an alleged counterparty agreement in loan transactions between ICICI Bank and the conglomerate.
The CBI accused the former Kochhar bank chief of allegedly receiving “illegal gratuity” from Videocon through her husband for approving a Rs 300 million term loan. The ED investigated how the money was allegedly laundered.
The Kochhars and Venugopal Dhoot of Videocon have denied the allegations by both the CBI and the ED.
The DE had also claimed that the Kochhar family acquired an apartment in Mumbai from the Videocon Group at a lower than market price. The total value of the assets thus acquired, which he termed “proceeds of crime”, was Rs 78.15 million, the ED said.
During the DE’s questioning last year, Kochhar denied wrongdoing and said that the loan approval was a collective decision and not an individual one.
“The CCI Chambers apartment was transferred from Bilquis Jahan Begum to me and my brother in February 1996,” Deepak Kochhar had told ET in February of last year. “Since then, I have been the owner and occupant to date. The transfer deed and the share certificate reflect the same ”. Dhoot denied being part of the deal.
“(The apartment) was owned by the Kochhar family from the beginning and we never had any ownership or other interest in the apartment,” he had said.
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