Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday arrested Deepak Kochhar, husband of former CEO of the ICICI Bank Chanda Kochhar following the probe in ICICI- Videocon money laundering case.
Deepak was arrested under the sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and will be produced in front of the local court on Tuesday to seek his custody.
The ED had filed PMLA last year against the couple and Venugopal Dhoot, of the Videocon group for alleged irregularities worth Rs. 1,875 crore. The case was filed based on the complaint by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is conducting a parallel investigation, against the three and companies owned by them—the ICICI Bank of the Kochhars, Videocon Group and NuPower Renewables of Dhoot.
The CBI alleged that Dhoot invested in NuPower another company named Supreme Energy via loans cleared by the ICICI. The Rs. 1,875 crore in loans were sanctioned between June 2009 and October 2011.
Chanda Kochhar stepped down from the CEO post in October 2018 and the board of directors sacked her as the member in January 2019. In March 2019, she defended herself in front of the ED stating that the loans were given on merit and that she had no connection with her husband’s businesses.