The Bombay High Court has declared the arrests of former ICICI Bank CEO and MD Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar as "illegal" in the ICICI Bank-Videocon loan fraud case. Upholding the interim bail order granted in January 2023 by Justice Revati Mohite-Dere, a division bench of Justices Anuja Prabhudesai and Nitin R. Borkar confirmed the verdict on Tuesday.
The court's decision came after completing the hearing last month and reserving the verdict. Notably, Justice Mohite-Dere had previously questioned the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) about the delay in investigating the case, considering the FIR was lodged in 2019. The Kochhars were arrested on December 23, 2022, pending their plea.
In its interim order, the court ruled that the arrests of the Kochhars did not adhere to relevant laws, and the reasons for their arrest four years after the launch of the probe were not adequately explained in the arrest summons.
During the proceedings, Chanda Kochhar's lawyer, senior advocate Amit Desai, argued that his client had cooperated fully with the CBI but faced no investigations for over three years until mid-2022. He contended that her arrest was illegal and violated provisions of the CrPC, emphasizing that no woman police officer was present during Chanda Kochhar's arrest.
On the other hand, CBI lawyer Kuldeep Patil asserted that the interim bail order only considered the arrest memos, overlooking case diaries and remand applications that allegedly indicated the Kochhars' lack of cooperation with the probe agency.
The CBI had initially challenged the interim bail order in the Supreme Court, which directed the agency to argue the matter before the Bombay High Court.
The investigation against the Kochhars was initiated by the CBI in January 2018, following revelations that Videocon Group's chief Venugopal Dhoot had purportedly diverted loan amounts obtained from ICICI Bank in 2012 to a company co-owned by Deepak Kochhar and others. The alleged irregularities involved the granting of six high-value loans totaling around Rs 1,575 crore to five Videocon Group companies between June 2009 and October 2011, allegedly violating the bank's sanctioning committee rules and policy. These loans subsequently turned into non-performing assets (NPAs), resulting in a substantial loss of over Rs 1,730 crore to ICICI Bank by April 2012.
(With Agency Inputs)
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