A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Monday sent Videocon group chairman Venugopal Dhoot, who was arrested earlier in the day in connection with its probe into ICICI Bank loan irregularities, to custody till December 28 (Wednesday).
The court also extended the remand of ICICI Bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar, who were arrested on Friday night for allegedly cheating the bank of `1,730 crore, till December 28.
All three were produced before special court judge A S Sayyad.
During the hearing, Deepak Kochhar’s advocate Vikram Chaudhary argued that the remand did not mention how and why he was not cooperating during the investigation. The ED had arrested Deepak Kochhar in September 2020 before he was granted bail in March 2021.
Chanda Kochhar’s advocate told the court that there is no instance where the CBI filed a chargesheet against his client and she was found guilty as charged. “The CBI did not investigate for two days. How can it then say that my client is not cooperating?” Desai said.
Videocon’s Dhoot, who was questioned multiple times over the last four years, was arrested on the basis of documentary evidence, which allegedly showed he bribed the Kochhars for availing loans from the private bank.
In its First Information Report (FIR) filed in January 2019, CBI alleged there were irregularities in six high-value loans worth `1,875 crore disbursed to Videocon Group between June 2009 and October 2011. The agency claimed that the Kochhars allegedly got `64 crore bribe from Dhoot a day after the bank disbursed a loan of `300 crore to Videocon International Electronics (VIEL) in August 2009.