Bombay HC reserves verdict in interim release plea by Chanda, Deepak Kochhar against ‘illegal’ arrest by CBI

The Kochhars were arrested on December 23, 2022 and Dhoot three days later in connection with the Videocon loan case. While Chanda is lodged in Byculla women’s jail, Deepak and Dhoot are lodged in the Arthur Road jail. ICICI Bank and Chanda have been under regulatory scrutiny after The Indian Express first reported on March 29, 2018 that Dhoot provided crores of rupees to a firm he had set up with Deepak and two relatives, six months after his company got a Rs 3,250-crore loan from ICICI Bank in 2012. The CBI lodged its FIR in the case in 2019.

Kochhars’ lawyer had said that the arrest was carried out after four years and was in violation of Section 41A of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which mandates the investigating officer to issue a notice of appearance before an arrest is made.

On Friday, senior advocate Amit Desai for Chanda said she has cooperated with the CBI probe throughout and no inquiry took place for over three years until the first half of 2022. Desai added that while the prosecution had made a statement in a money-laundering case registered by Enforcement Directorate (ED), which was conducting a parallel in-depth probe even during Covid-19-pandemic, that they did not require her custody, Chanda had been ” arbitrarily” arrested in the CBI case. “We have this agency (ED), which it is said nowadays that the citizens are fearful of, did not think they needed to arrest the petitioner, CBI felt the need to do so,” he added.

Desai pointed out that no female police officer was present at the time of Chanda’s arrest. He said that Chanda was arrested at 4: 30 pm, prior to sunset and as per procedure to arrest a woman, a female police officer was required to be present for the arrest, which was not the case. Desai said his client did not understand for what reasons they were arrested when the wedding of her only son had come near. He added that Deepak was an independent businessman and Chanda had not shared anything related to the bank’s affairs with him. Desai, along with senior advocate Vikram Chaudhari for Deepak submitted that arrest memo did mention sufficient grounds and arrest was carried out in violation of Section 41A (Notice of appearance before police officer) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

In response, senior advocate Raja Thakare for CBI submitted that Kochhars were remanded for eight days in total and no further remand was sought by the agency. He also said that the accused, who are in judicial custody, could have filed an application seeking regular bail instead of the plea in HC.

Thakare said that the ‘case diary’ has recorded all the reasons for the grounds for the arrest and the same was perused by the trial court judge while granting remand and the arrest memo need not mention all the grounds. He also submitted that non-cooperation by the accused would certainly affect proper investigation and therefore their custodial interrogation was necessary.

Thakare said that Chanda had never claimed that she was touched by a male police officer while she was being arrested. “In white collar crimes, criminals are not taken by hand. It was an arrest cum search. It is fallacious to contend that no woman constable was present. Full compliance of legal and procedural safeguards was done by the CBI,” he said, seeking dismissal of the pleas.