Deepak Kochhar was arrested on Monday for alleged money laundering
New Delhi:
Deepak Kochhar, the husband of former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar, has been placed in the custody of the Directorate of Enforcement for 10 days for alleged money laundering. Mr. Kochhar was arrested yesterday by the Directorate of Execution after nine hours of questioning.
He was brought before an anti-corruption court in Mumbai before being sent into the custody of the Directorate of Enforcement until 19 September.
The investigative agency has not summoned Chanda Kochhar.
“Deepak Kochhar has not been cooperating with the investigation, so his custody questioning was needed,” a person involved in the investigation told NDTV, asking not to be identified.
In 2012, ICICI Bank, under the leadership of Ms Kochhar, provided a loan of Rs 3,250 crore to Videocon Group. Six months later, Supreme Energy of industrialist Venugopal Dhoot granted a loan of Rs 64 million to NuPower Renewables, in which Kochhar has a 50 percent stake. Researchers have said that this Rs 64 crore was quid pro quo.
Ms. Kochhar resigned as CEO of ICICI almost two years ago due to the investigation. The Kochhar have denied all the charges against her.
In its request for custody of Mr. Kochhar, the Directorate of Enforcement said that he had been “totally uncooperative, evasive and misleading during the investigation.”
Last year, the Directorate of Enforcement conducted searches of Ms. Kochhar’s properties and those linked to Videocon. Videocon’s managing director has also denied any wrongdoing.
In January this year, ICICI Bank filed a petition in Bombay High Court to recover the bonuses awarded to Ms Kochhar. Ms. Kochhar had contested the “termination” of her job by the country’s second-largest private bank last year, which had blocked her pay on allegations of lending “out of turn.”
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