A special CBI court observed that loans to Videocon group companies were given while considering the chargesheet filed by the CBI against former managing director and chief executive officer of ICICI Bank Chanda Kochhar and others. There was sufficient material to take action against all the accused in the case for violating the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) circular.
A special CBI court on Wednesday heard the chargesheet filed by the central agency against Chanda Kochhar, her husband Deepak Kochhar and Videocon Group promoter Venugopal Doot in March and issued notices to all the accused.
In January 2019, the CBI had registered a case to investigate irregularities in the sanctioning of a term loan (RTL) of Rs. ₹Chanda Kochhar paid Rs 1,875 crore to six entities when he was the managing director (MD) and CEO of the bank. The agency had informed that the loan amount has been reduced ₹1,730 crore after restructuring, a Rs ₹1,033 crore is still outstanding.
Kochhar was on the bank’s loan committee when two loans were approved – RTL ₹300 crores to M/s Videocon International Electronics Limited (VIEL) and RTL ₹750 crore – to M/s Videocon Industries Limited (VIL), the agency said. In addition, the bank also released security available in the form of FDR ₹50 crore in the accounts of other group firms M/s Sky Appliances Ltd and M/s Techno Electronic Ltd without any justification, the agency added.
“The allegation related to concealment of facts, irregularity in sanction of loan, diversion of loan amount, misappropriation of funds beyond the sanctioned purpose and acceptance of part of loan as inducement/reward from public. Prima facie, the records are clear that the employee, through the companies set up by her husband, concealed the interest in the loan proposal and violated the circulars issued by the Reserve Bank in this regard and the illegal gratification received by the public servant,” said Special Judge S.P. Naik Nimbalkar said in the order.
“The roles of all the accused in connection with the above-mentioned transactions can be explained and proved on the basis of these documents. Therefore, at this stage, there are sufficient reasons to establish that a prima facie case has been made out on the investigation papers collected by the CBI,” the special court said, referring to the evidence collected by the agency against all the accused.