The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Deepak Kochhar, husband of former ICICI Bank CEO and MD Chanda Kochhar, in connection with the ICICI Bank-Videocon money laundering case probe, officials said. They said Kochhar was arrested under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Officials said Kochhar was placed under arrest as the agency wants to put him under custodial interrogation to obtain more details about some fresh evidence gathered in this case, that was filed under the criminal sections of the anti-money laundering law in January last year.
The ED had filed its case after studying an FIR registered by the CBI against the couple, Videocon Group promoter Venugopal Dhoot and others. It slapped money laundering charges against the Kochhars and their business entities for 'illegal sanctioning of loans amounting to £187.5 million to the Videocon Group of companies'.
The ED had earlier said an amount of £6.4 million, out of the loan amount of £30 million sanctioned by a committee headed by Chanda Kochhar to Videocon International Electronics Limited, was transferred to Nupower Renewables Pvt Ltd (NRPL) by Videocon Industries Limited on September 8, 2009, just a day after disbursement of the loan by ICICI Bank. NRPL was earlier known as NuPower Renewables Limited (NRL) and is a company of Deepak Kochhar.
The agency had alleged that the 'net revenue of £1.06 million was generated by NRL from these tainted funds'. 'Therefore, proceeds of crime amounting to £7.46 million were transferred to or to say generated in NRPL,' the ED had claimed. The ED, early this year, also attached assets - including a Mumbai flat where the couple lived, land, and plant and machinery of a wind farm project based in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra - valued at £7.8 million 'in possession of' Chanda Kochhar, Deepak Kochhar and the companies owned and controlled by him. It had said Chanda Kochhar and her family 'acquired' the Mumbai apartment, owned by one of the Videocon Group companies, by way of 'acquiring that company through her family trust at a nominal price and by creating book entries'.
The couple has been questioned by the central probe agency multiple times in the past. The CBI, in its FIR, had named Chanda Kochhar, Deepak Kochhar, Dhoot and his companies - Videocon International Electronics Ltd (VIEL) and Videocon Industries Limited (VIL).
