Business

CBI Official Probing Kocchars Transferred Sparking Speculation In Political Circles

THE CBI case involving Kocchars, Videocon Chief Venugopal Dhoot and other influential bigwigs   has taken a new turn following the transfer of the agency’s official concerned. NDTV reports CBI officer probing the case against former ICICI Bank chief Chanda Kochhar, her husband Deepak Kochhar and the Videocon head was transferred on Thursday; a day after a case against them was filed. The agency’s move was criticised by Union minister Arun Jaitley who is under treatment abroad .In a Face Book post he called the action taken by the CBI “investigative adventurism” and said it was one of the reasons for the poor conviction rate in India. The Congress said the government is interfering again in the agency which went after its “suited booted friends” this time. Sudhanshu Dhar Mishra, who was part of the Banking and Securities Fraud Cell, was transferred to the agency’s Economic Offences Branch in Ranchi .They are accused of massive irregularities in obtaining a loan for the Videocon Group and channelling a part of it into a firm founded by Deepak Kochhar suggesting  quid pro quo.On January 24, CBI booked forme r CEO of the   Mumbai headquartered  private bank Chanda Kochhar, her businessman husband Deepak Kochhar and Videocon   MD Venugopal Dhootin a case of alleged irregularities in the sanctioning of loans by the ICICI Bank. Kochhar had quit the ICICI on October 4 last year in the wake of allegations that she had favoured Videocon in the lending processes because the consumer electronics company’s founders had invested in a company of her husband Deepak Kochhar.TheCBIfiled cases against the three along with some others after conducting raids at four premises in Maharashtra as per statement issued by the investigating agency. The preliminary enquiry apparently showed that from June 2009 to October 2011,ICICI Bank had allegedly sanctioned six high-value loans to various Videocon Group companies. Chanda Kochhar had taken over the post of the Managing Director of the ICICI Bank on May 1, 2009.The companies M/Nupower Renewables Limited(NRL) and M/S Supreme Energy Private Limited (SEPL) have also been named in the case registered by CBI.It is alleged that SEPL was initially incorporated by Dhoot and his associate Vasant Kakade and the ownership of the company was later transferred to Deepak Kochhar by selling the shares of the company to Pinnacle Energy Trust (PET) which was owned by Kochhar. It was also alleged that Dhoot had invested a large amount of funds in Deepak Kochhar owned Nupower months after the Videocon group received Rs 3,250 crore as loan from the ICICI Banking 2012.The Congress has alleged that the government was interfering in the case.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.