Winning Bizness Desk

Mumbai. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Videocon Group founder Venugopal Dhoot on Monday morning. This arrest has taken place in connection with the ICICI Bank loan fraud case. Earlier on Friday, the agency had arrested former CEO and MD of ICICI Bank Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar. After this, they were sent to the custody of 3 days (24 to 26 December) by the Special Court of Mumbai. It is alleged that when Chanda Kochhar took charge of ICICI Bank, one of the largest private banks in the country, 6 loans were sanctioned to various companies of Videocon. At least two loans were sanctioned by committees in which Chanda Kochhar was a member. He is also accused of influencing other committees to sanction loans to the Videocon Group.

Court was not convinced?

Chanda Kochhar's lawyer told the court on Saturday that Chanda was not a director or stakeholder in any company to which loans were given. This statement was acceptable to ED and ED did not arrest him. But the CBI was not satisfied with this statement and the arrest was made. The lawyer had said that the beneficiary of these loans is VN Dhoot. He questioned, 'If the CBI feels that a fraud took place then why only Kochhar was arrested and not the beneficiary.'

Matter dates back to 2012

Fraud was done through the loan given to Videocon by ICICI Bank. These loans later turned into non-performing assets. This includes a loan of Rs 3,250 crore given to Videocon in the year 2012. According to the allegations, Venugopal Dhoot, former chairman of Videocon Group, invested crores of rupees in Kochhar's company Nupower Renewables after Videocon got the loan. The loan was sanctioned by a committee, in which Chanda Kochhar was also a member. In October 2018, Chanda had to resign over the matter.

The investigation started in 2016

The probe into the matter began in 2016 after Arvind Gupta, an investor in both the firms, Videocon Group and ICICI Bank, raised concerns about loan irregularities. Gupta wrote about this to the RBI and even the Prime Minister, but his complaint went unnoticed at that time until in March 2018, another whistle-blower complained. After the complaint made against the top management, the attention of many agencies went towards this. However, in the same month the bank issued a statement saying that it had full faith in Chanda Kochhar. The statement was made after an investigation into Chanda's alleged role in passing off the loan to Videocon Group. The agencies continued with their investigation and after increasing pressure on the bank, it also started the investigation. After this CBI registered FIR on 24 January 2019.