Chanda Kochhar appears before court in Videocon case, gets bail

Former ICICI Bank CEO and MDChanda Kochhar on Friday appeared before a court here in thealleged ICICI Bank-Videocon money laundering case, and wasgranted bail.

It was the former banker's first appearance in thecourt.

On January 30, the special court for Prevention ofMoney Laundering Act (PMLA) had summoned Chanda Kochhar, herhusband Deepak, Videocon Group promoter Venugopal Dhoot andother accused after taking cognizance of the charge sheet.

Chanda Kochhar accordingly appeared before the specialJudge A A Nandgaonkar. Her lawyers Vijay Agarwal and RahulAgarwal sought bail for her, arguing that she had beencooperating with the Enforcement Directorate's probe and hadvisited the ED office in Delhi whenever summoned.

The Central agency has never arrested her in thecase, they pointed out.

The judge granted her bail on a bond of Rs 5 lakh anddirected that she should report to the ED office wheneverrequired and not leave India without the court's permission.

The court also asked her to surrender her passport tothe ED immediately.

''The applicant shall not tamper with the evidence orattempt to influence or contact the complainant, witnesses orany person concerned with the case,'' the order said.

Deepak Kochhar, who is currently in judicial custody,was also produced before the court.

Dhoot's lawyers said he did not remain present as hehad not received the summons.

A prosecution official said they tried to serve thesummons to the industrialist, but could not do so as there wasno male member present at his house to accept it.

The ED arrested Deepak Kochhar in September 2020 afterit filed a case for money laundering based on an FIRregistered by the CBI against the Kochhar couple, Dhoot andothers.

The ED alleged that Rs 64 crore out of a loan of Rs300 crore sanctioned by a committee of ICICI Bank headed byChanda Kochhar to Videocon International Electronics Limitedwas transferred to Nupower Renewables Pvt Ltd (NRPL) onSeptember 8, 2009, a day after the disbursement of loan.

It is alleged that this was a quid-pro-quo forsanctioning the loan as NRPL was owned by Deepak Kochhar.

Judge Nandgaonkar, while taking cognizance of chargesheet, had observed that from the material presented by theED, it appeared that Chanda Kochhar misused her officialposition in granting loan to Dhoot and Videocon group firms,and ''got illegal gratification'' through her husband.

The material was sufficient to proceed with trialagainst the accused, the court had said.