The ICICI bank Videocon Loan controversy is much talked about recently. One of the burning and the most discussed topics shared its screen space in almost all the news channels and print media. As the latest business news highlights, the case was under CBI that went on to interrogate the ICICI Bank’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Chanda Kochhar’s brother-in-law, Rajiv Kochhar too. He was asked to explain his role in the bank’s loan transaction to Videocon. The bank has reportedly given a loan of a massive Rs 3,250 crore to Videocon Group in the year 2012.
The time is going tough for the ICICI Bank. Chanda Kochhar is accused of having personal interest and making gains in loans worth Rs 3,250 crore which was given to the Videocon Industries. The CBI is busy finding the necessary documents of the transactions to identify any wrongdoing. An ICICI Bank shareholder, Arvind Gupta, had written to the PMO and FM about the Kochhar’s wrongful gains from the Videocon loans. ICICI Bank was part of a total loan ofRs 40,000 crore extended to Videocon by a consortium of 20 banks. As per his letter, Deepak Kochhar was benefitted from this as his company NuPower Renewables was set up as a JV between the Kochhars and Dhoots, who are actually the members of the Videocon Group. Chanda Kochhar is accused of benefiting and favoring her husband.
The prime accused, Rajiv Kochhar, marked his presence at the Mumbai office of CBI. The news say that he was asked to detail about the loan and his connection with the promoter of the Videocon Group – Venugopal Dhoot, and also with the company itself. The sources also say that he was detained at the Mumbai airport recently when he was trying to fly to South East Asian country. He was detained as per the look out circular which was published by the bureau. He was interrogated at the airport itself and at the CBI office too.
The central bureau of investigation or CBI has filed for a preliminary enquiryin the name of Venugopal Dhoot, the Videocon Group promoter and Deepak Kochhar. This is probably the first stage of the interrogation by the CBI as they wish to collect some more data regarding the accusations. After the enquiry, if the CBI is confident that there lies some prima facie material in this regard, it may file a regular case in the name of the accused.
Dhoot’s connection with NuPower Renewables, which is a company founded by Deepak Kochhar, Chanda Kochhar’s husband and Rajiv Kochar’s brother, was questioned. But, ICICI Bank board is in full support of Chanda Kochhar. The bank says that they will stand by her as the bank has complete trust and confidence in her. The bank went on to say that the reports of the credit disbursement to Videocon Group that are against her are nothing more than the malicious and unfounded rumors.
As per the private sector lender, when CBI examined the bank’s internal procedures of the credit approval, they were found hearty. It also clarified that the bank’s current exposure was syndicated consortium arrangement. Another thing that was clarified was that no investors of NuPower Renewables were the borrowers of the Bank.