The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) gets three-day custody of Videocon Chairman Venugopal Dhoot, former MD and CEO of ICICI Bank Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar in connection with the ICICI bank-Videocon loan fraud case.
The central agency brought the three accused to CBI court in Mumbai connection with the loan fraud case.
Dhoot was arrested on Monday morning by the CBI, while the agency arrested former MD & CEO of ICICI bank Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar on Friday.
The CBI has alleged that ICICI Bank sanctioned credit facilities to the tune of Rs 3,250 crore to the companies of Videocon Group promoted by Venugopal Dhoot in violation of the Banking Regulation Act, RBI guidelines and the credit policy of the bank.
The probing agency also applied to the court seeking permission to invoke the charge of `criminal breach of trust' under the Indian Penal Code against them.
On the other hand, the defence lawyer for Kochhars, claimed that ICICI Bank had stated in the past that it had not suffered any wrongful loss, and pointed out that the "main borrower" had not been arrested yet. Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar were arrested by the central probe agency after brief interrogation at its Delhi office on Friday. On Saturday, they were produced in Mumbai before special holiday court judge S M Menjonge who remanded them in the custody of the CBI.
According to reports, Chanda Kochhar (59) resigned as CEO and MD of ICICI Bank in October 2018 over allegations that she had favoured Videocon Group, a consumer electronics and oil and gas exploration company, in the bank's lending practices. It is alleged that Dhoot had reportedly invested crores of rupees in NuPower Renewables months after the Videocon Group got Rs 3,250 crore as a loan from ICICI Bank in 2012, CBI said.
The CBI, after filing the FIR in 2019, in a statement said that the accused had sanctioned certain loans to private companies in a criminal conspiracy with others to cheat ICICI Bank.