Guwahati: The Central Bureau of Investigation arrested Venugopal Dhoot on Monday in connection with the ICICI loan issue. He is the chairman of the Videocon Group. This occurs just days after Chanda Kochhar, the former CEO of ICICI Bank and her husband Deepak Kochhar were arrested by the CBI in connection with alleged irregularities in a loan of more than 3,000 crore given to the Videocon Group while she was heading the private sector bank.
The Kochhars have been brought before Mumbai court and are currently being questioned.
In the FIR filed in 2019 under IPC sections related to criminal conspiracy and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, the CBI had named the Kochhars and Mr. Dhoot as accused, along with businesses managed by Deepak Kochhar, including Nupower Renewables (NRL), Supreme Energy, Videocon International Electronics Ltd. and Videocon Industries Limited.
A claim that Chanda Kochhar, 59 had favoured Videocon Group, a consumer electronics and oil and gas exploration company led to her resignation as CEO and managing director of ICICI Bank in October 2018.
A year later, ICICI said that it would classify Ms. Kochhar’s departure as “termination for cause” since she had broken the bank’s code of conduct and internal standards, according to national media.
According to the CBI, ICICI Bank granted credit facilities totaling 3,250 crore to the Videocon Group entities that Mr. Dhoot promoted in violation of the Banking Regulation Act, RBI norms and the bank’s credit policy.
Additionally, it was claimed in the FIR that between 2010 and 2012, Mr. Dhoot invested 64 crore rupees through Supreme Energy Pvt Ltd (SEPL) in Nupower Renewables and then secretly transferred SEPL to Pinnacle Energy Trust run by Deepak Kochhar.