MUMBAI: Deepak Kochhar, husband of the former CEO of ICICI Bank Chanda kochhar, has been referred to Execution direction (ED) custody until September 19. Arrested on Monday, he was presented before the special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for his pretrial detention hearing at noon.
The ED in its statement had requested 14 day custody. Opposing this, Deepak Kochhar’s attorney, Vijay Aggarwal, said: “The arrest is illegal as my client has been cooperating in the investigations. Offenses are punishable by imprisonment for up to 7 years only. So he can’t be arrested like that when he joined the investigation by subpoena. ”
The ED is investigating a money laundering case against Chanda and Deepak Kochar. In January, the ED had provisionally seized Kochhars’ assets worth Rs 78 crore in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.
The money laundering case is based on a CBI FIR against the couple and others for defrauding ICICI Bank by illegally granting a loan instead of a kickback.
It is alleged that ICICI Bank then run by Chanda Kochhar had illegally sanctioned Rs 1,875 crore to Videocon Group companies that subsequently became non-performing assets (NPA) in 2017, causing losses to the bank.
During the investigation, ED found a case, where a committee headed by Chanda Kochhar at ICICI Bank had sanctioned a loan of Rs 300 million to Videocon International Electronics Ltd. Of that money, Videocon transferred Rs 64 crore to Nupower Renewables, which was owned by Deepak Kochhar in 2009. The money was transferred one day after the loan was disbursed.
ED discovered that Chanda Kochhar through his family trust also acquired an apartment in Mumbai that was previously owned by the Videocon group at a nominal price.
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