The special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court on Thursday rejected the default bail petition filed by businessman Deepak Kochhar, husband of former managing director and chief executive officer of ICICI Bank Chanda Kochhar.
Special judge P.R. Rajvaidya, who rejected the application for bail, however adjourned for prosecution to reply to the plea on merits on November 23.
Mr. Kochhar was arrested by ED on September 7 on charges of money laundering. The case pertains to the deals between Videocon Group and the Bank. The ED has relied upon an FIR registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation in 2019.
Advocate Vijay Agarwal, appearing for Mr. Kochhar, had argued that the chargesheet filed in the case was submitted in the registry and not filed in court. Therefore the court had not taken cognisance of the same, which made Mr. Kochhar’s remand “illegal.”
Enforcement Directorate (ED) counsel and special public prosecutor Hiten Venegavkar refuted the same and said: “There is no provision suggesting that chargesheet has to be filed only before the judge and not the registry, as registry and judge are part of the same institution and thus cannot be separated.” He said as per the process at Sessions Court, chargesheet should be “filed in the registry first and after scrutiny it is placed before the judge. There is no prescribed time for this to be done”.
The CBI FIR had charged Mr. Kochhar with cheating and criminal conspiracy and for causing loss to ICICI Bank by sanctioning loans to the Videocon Group of companies in contravention of the rules and policies of ICICI Bank during the relevant period. These loans given to the Videocon group had turned non-performing assets and thus resulted in wrongful loss to the ICICI Bank and wrongful gain to the borrowers and accused persons.
The investigation under PMLA revealed, “the rate of interest charged by ICICI Bank on the said loan of ₹300 crore (which was later refinanced on April 26, 2012 and sanctioned to Videocon Industries Limited) was more than 12% per annum, since disbursement of this loan, which at times increased to more than 14% per annum.”
