The Supreme Court of India has issued notices to former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar in the ongoing loan fraud case involving Videocon Group. The notices were issued following a plea by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) challenging the bail granted by the Bombay High Court earlier this year.
A bench led by Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Sanjay Kumar has called for responses from the Kochhars regarding the CBI’s appeal. In February, the Bombay High Court had affirmed the interim bail for the ousted ICICI chief and her entrepreneur husband, criticizing the CBI’s arrest as “routine, mechanical, and an abuse of power.”
The case centers around allegations that between June 2009 and April 2012, Chanda Kochhar influenced the sanctioning of loans worth ₹1,875 crore from ICICI Bank to the struggling Videocon Group, which was later followed by suspicious investments in Deepak Kochhar’s renewable energy company, NuPower Renewables Pvt. Ltd. (NRPL). The CBI’s investigation pointed out that Videocon’s promoter Venugopal Dhoot had invested ₹64 crore in NRPL through a convoluted process designed to appear as legitimate business transactions.
Further complicating the case, the CBI has uncovered that a Mumbai property valued at ₹5.25 crore was sold to a trust owned by Deepak Kochhar for a mere ₹11 lakhs, suggesting a potential quid pro quo.
