ICICI Bank loan fraud case: HC reserves order on Venugopal Dhoot’s plea for bail

The Bombay high court on Friday reserved its order on the petition filed by Videocon Group promoter Venugopal Dhoot seeking to quash the FIR registered against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and his release on bail

The Bombay high court on Friday reserved its order on the petition filed by Videocon Group promoter Venugopal Dhoot seeking to quash the FIR registered against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and his release on bail.

Mumbai, Dec 26 (ANI): Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials produce Videocon chairman Venugopal Dhoot before the CBI court in connection with an alleged ICICI Bank-Videocon loan fraud case, in Mumbai on Monday. (ANI Photo) (ANI)

A division bench of justice Revati Mohite Dere and justice P K Chavan said it would, for now, decide on Dhoot’s plea for bail on the grounds that his arrest in the ICICI Bank-Videocon loan fraud case was illegal.

Dhoot had moved the HC contending that he was arrested for non-cooperation after he failed to respond to the notice issued to him under section 41A of CrPC on December 25. However, he said, he had visited the CBI office voluntarily the next day.

His counsel, advocate Sandeep Ladda, argued that he had been cooperating with the investigating officer and had appeared before him on December 22. The notice of December 25, he said, was pasted on his office premises and hence, he was unaware of it. Ladda further said Dhoot had also appeared before the Enforcement Directorate 31 times in a connected case.

The CBI, in its reply, said the investigating officer had issued Dhoot a notice of appearance on December 25 so that he could be confronted with Chanda Kochhar, former MD and CEO of ICICI Bank, and her husband Deepak Kochhar, who were arrested on December 23. However, Dhoot failed to appear on the day and hence, another notice was issued on December 26.

Dhoot was arrested because he failed to produce documents sought by the agency and also because he had been giving evasive replies, it said.

Senior counsel Raja Thakare, representing the CBI, said Dhoot and Kochhars systematically avoided the probe though they were required to be interrogated together.

After hearing the submissions, the court said at this stage it was only looking at the aspect of illegal arrest by the CBI and was not getting into other issues raised by Dhoot. The bench said as both sides had argued on that aspect it was reserving its order.

According to the CBI, between June 2009 and October 2011, ICICI Bank had sanctioned rupee term loans (RTLs) of ₹1,875 crore to six companies of Videocon Group for the purpose of enabling them to repay the unsecured loans to M/s Videocon Industries Limited.

All these loans were sanctioned after Chanda Kochhar took over as the MD and CEO of the private bank. She was on the sanctioning committee when two loans - RTL of ₹300 crore to M/s Videocon International Electronics Limited and RTL of ₹750 crore to M/S Videocon Industries Limited - were sanctioned.

ICICI Bank had also released the security in the form of fixed deposits of ₹50 crore in the accounts of Videocon Group companies - M/s Sky Appliance Limited and M/s Techno Electronic Limited.

The agency further alleged that on April 26, 2012, the existing outstanding of the six RTL accounts were adjusted in RTL of ₹1,730 crore sanctioned to M/S VIL under refinance of domestic debt. The account of M/s VIL was declared NPA with effect from June 30, 2017, and the outstanding in the a/c was ₹1,033 crore.