‘Arrest required due to Venugopal Dhoot’s evasive replies’: CBI to HC as court reserves order in interim release plea

A special CBI court had on January 5 rejected Dhoot’s plea. A division bench of Justice Revati Mohite-Dere and Justice Prithviraj K Chavan on Friday concluded hearing in Dhoot’s interim plea and reserved it for order, which will be pronounced in due course.

While the Kochhars were arrested on December 23 last year, Dhoot was arrested three days later in connection with the Videocon loan case. The Kochhars walked out of jail on Tuesday, January 11, after the high court granted them interim bail.

“Dhoot had not attended the CBI office on December 23 as he would have been confronted with Kochhars, who were arrested on the same day,” the central agency claimed. “He was again called to attend the CBI office on December 25, which he did not. We were losing the days of custody and he did not attend while he was to be confronted with Kochhars. Therefore it became necessary on December 26 to arrest him as he was giving evasive replies and we had already got Kochhars’ custody. They had decided what precise answers to be given to lie. However, the moment Dhoot was arrested, the blame game started,” senior advocate Raja Thakare for CBI said.

Thakare was referring to a submission Dhoot’s lawyer made before the special CBI court that his client was arrested despite cooperating with CBI, because Kochhars, who are his co-accused, had questioned during their first remand hearing why he (Dhoot) had not been held so far. Dhoot was subsequently arrested in a “mechanical manner”, his lawyer had told the special court.

After the bench sought to know if the agency was able to get Dhoot confronted with Kochhars in custody, Thakare said that after he was granted CBI remand for three days, during that they were interrogated together on December 26 and 27.

Advocate Sandeep S Ladda for Dhoot said that his client is a senior citizen suffering from serious ailments, including diabetes, required 24/7 care and had undergone several surgeries and hospitalisations in the last seven years.

Ladda said that on December 22, 2022, Dhoot’s statements were recorded by the CBI and on belatedly learning of the notice under Section 41A of the CrPC dated December 24, he responded to it by email on the noon of December 25, 2022. He then voluntarily appeared before the CBI on December 26, 2022.

Dhoot alleged that despite this, the CBI wrongly contended that he had not cooperated with the probe, as he failed to respond to one of the notices under Section 41A, while the notice itself was not served to him physically but was posted on walls of his former office building in Mumbai when he resides in Aurangabad.

Ladda further said that the ED was conducting a probe in a related case of money laundering and the agency had filed a chargesheet without arresting Dhoot. He told the high court that he was granted bail in the case and the same should be considered.

Responding to contention of delay in probe by the petitioner, Thakare said that while dealing with cases of high magnitude having innumerable transactions, getting material takes time and its due examination is required. He said that if the person is arrested in a hurried manner then “the clock starts ticking to file chargesheet”.

The central agency said it complied with the law while arresting the accused and the release will jeopardise the probe. Thakare added that Dhoot had no cash flow while he sought Rs 300 crore loan from ICICI Bank and collateral security was not available and the quid-pro-quo between him and the Kochhars was established.