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Bank loan fraud: Court declines urgent hearing to Kochhars’ plea against arrest
In their application the couple alleged that the arrest was an illegal move as it was effected nearly four years after the registration of an FIR against them in connection with the alleged loan fraud involving Videocon Group led by Venugopal Dhoot.
A vacation bench of the Bombay high court on Tuesday refused to take up for urgent hearing a petition filed by Chanda Kochhar, former managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) of ICICI Bank, and her husband Deepak Kochhar challenging their arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as illegal.
In their application the couple alleged that the arrest was an illegal move as it was effected nearly four years after the registration of an FIR against them in connection with the alleged loan fraud involving Videocon Group led by Venugopal Dhoot.
The application said that as the family was preparing for the marriage of their only son on January 15, the arrest smacked of mala fide and hence the order granting their custody to the CBI should be quashed and set aside.
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The vacation bench, however, told the couple that it was not inclined to intervene in the matter and said that there was no urgency and the petitioners could approach a regular court on January 2.
Advocate Kushal Mor for the Kochhars, while seeking an urgent hearing of the application, informed the vacation bench of justices Madhav Jamdar and SG Chapalgaonkar that the couple had been summoned by the central agency on December 22. However, at their request the agency allowed them to appear on December 23, which they did.
The application said that after they were questioned for 20 minutes, the agency arrested them without following proper procedure. Chanda’s application said the agency did not follow the statutory mandate of the Code of Criminal Procedure for arresting women, as no woman officer was present to arrest her.
The application has further stated that as her only son’s marriage is fixed on January 15, 2023 and programmes and functions were to start shortly, the arrest after four years of the registration of the FIR in the lead-up to the wedding led to a firm belief that the act was done with mala fide intent.
The Kochhars were arrested on December 23 in Delhi over alleged irregularities in loans provided to six firms of Venugopal Dhoot’s Videocon Group.
In their petition, the Kochhars also said that they were arrested without prior sanction required under the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA). The couple also sought quashing and setting aside of the FIR registered against them by the CBI on these grounds.
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Dhoot was arrested in the case on Monday for allegedly paying bribes to the Kochhars for loans to his group companies.
Kochhar stepped down in 2018 from the top post at the bank amid an intensifying probe in the matter. The Enforcement Directorate, also involved in the probe, had said it was investigating 24 loans aggregating ₹1,730 crore that it believed ICICI Bank extended “illegally and criminally” to Videocon Group companies when Chanda Kochhar was at the helm of affairs.
Kochhar’s husband was arrested by the ED in September 2020 and was granted bail in March 2021.
