Court grants CBI 3-day custody of Ex-ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar, husband Deepak Kochhar in Videocon loan fraud case

Kochhar and her husband were arrested Friday night for their alleged involvement in cheating and committing irregularities in loans sanctioned by ICICI Bank to Videocon Group companies.

The CBI told the court that both accused had remained non-cooperative during the probe and their arrest was necessary.

CBI prosecutor A Limosine sought three days of custody of Chanda Kochhar and her husband to conduct their investigation, reported India Today.

He submitted before the court that while Chanda Kochhar was heading the bank, she had put pressure for approval of as many as six loans between 2009 and 2018.

Section 409 of Indian Penal Code was being added for Criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant, or agent.

He said both Kochhar and her husband ignored the CBI summon on December 15 and did not cooperate. Hence, they were arrested by CBI.

After this, advocate Amit Desai appearing for the Kochhars submitted before the court that the probe in the case has been going on for long but they were never summoned. He claimed that there the bank hadn’t suffered any loss and there was no ground for the Kochhars to be arrested, according to the report.

Desai submitted that the accused are not obstructing the investigation, they are not tampering with any evidence and are not a flight risk, and ready to appear whenever called so there was no ground for arresting them.

Desai asked why CBI acted only against Kochhars and why Videocon Chief Venugopal Dhoot was not arrested, said the report.

After hearing both sides, Special CBI judge SM Menjoge noted that custodial interrogation would be needed to complete the investigation and granted the three days of custody as requested by the central probe agency.