ICICI Bank Board gives nod to prosecute its former MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar

It is learnt that while the Board has given its go-ahead to prosecute Kochhar, it has said that no wrongful loss was caused to the bank in the loan transaction with Videocon. The Board has instead considered the transaction of Rs 64 crore allegedly received by Deepak’s firm, Nupower Renewables, from Videocon Industries Limited, while granting sanction under the anti-corruption Act.

The CBI had alleged that this showed that Kochhar had “dishonestly” abused her official position in disbursing a loan to Videocon on September 7, 2008, as on the very next day Rs 64 crore was received from the company to her husband’s firm.

The CBI while arresting Kochhar in December 2022 had said that it was probing wrongful loss caused to the tune of Rs 1,730 crore to ICICI Bank in transactions of six loans sanctioned to the Videocon Group between 2009 and 2011, including two by a sanctioning committee of which Chanda Kochhar was part of. Kochhar’s lawyer, too, had then referred to a letter written by ICICI Bank to the agency stating that there was no wrongful loss caused to the bank.

On Thursday, CBI counsel A Limosin informed the court that the sanction was received from the ICICI Bank Board. He sought directions to the registry of the court to keep the relevant sanction documents along with the chargesheet. At present, the chargesheet is under scrutiny in the registry. Once it is verified, the case will be assigned to a court, which will then consider taking cognisance of it and summon the accused accordingly.

Kocchar, the only public servant booked in the case, is charged under sections, including cheating, criminal conspiracy and criminal breach of trust under the Indian Penal Code, along with relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act. If the sanction was not granted, she would continue to face charges under the IPC but not the anti-corruption Act.

As bank employees are considered public servants, a sanction to prosecute them is mandatory to prevent them from being targeted or falsely implicated for official discharge of their duties. As per the Act, the sanctioning authority — in this case the Board — has to consider the evidence before it and take a decision.

Earlier, a similar sanction to prosecute was granted for employees of the Punjab National Bank (PNB), including its former managing director and CEO Usha Ananthasubramanian, in August 2018, by the Ministry of Finance. A Board of Directors of Yes Bank, too, had granted a sanction to prosecute its founder Rana Kapoor in connection with the Avantha Realty case. In another case against Kapoor, the lack of sanction had led to the case being remitted to the magistrate court as the sanction was not accorded by the relevant authority against Kapoor.

Kochhar was arrested in December along with Deepak by the CBI. The two were granted interim bail by the Bombay High Court in January stating that their arrest was not in accordance with provisions of law.