Deepak Kochhar has been arrested for alleged money laundering, officials said.
New Delhi:
Businessman Deepak Kochhar and husband of former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar were arrested by the Enforcement Directorate for alleged money laundering in an agreement between the bank and Videocon Group. They had interrogated him since noon today before being arrested that night.
The investigating agency had filed a criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) early last year against Ms. Kochhar, her husband, and Venugopal Dhoot of Videocon Group to investigate alleged wrongdoing and corrupt practices in the sanction of Rs 1,875 crore in loans from ICICI Bank. .
The Directorate of Enforcement is also investigating at least two other cases of loans granted by ICICI Bank during Ms. Kochhar’s tenure to the Gujarat-based pharmaceutical company Sterling Biotech and Bhushan Steel Group; both are also being investigated for alleged money laundering charges.
The case of the Directorate of Enforcement is based on a complaint registered by the Central Investigation Office (CBI), which is conducting an independent investigation; it had also named the three individuals and added three companies, including two under the Videocon name, owned by Mr. Dhoot’s companies.
NuPower Renewables, a company controlled by Deepak Kochhar, had also been named.
The CBI has alleged that Dhoot invested in NuPower through another company, Supreme Energy, in a matching arrangement through loans approved by ICICI after Kochhar took over as CEO in May 2009.
In preliminary investigations, the CBI found that six loans worth 1,875 million rupees were sanctioned between June 2009 and October 2011, in alleged violation of established policies. These loans were declared non-performing assets in 2012, resulting in a loss of Rs 1,730 million to the bank, the CBI further alleged.
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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