Mumbai: The Bombay High Court Thursday granted bail to businessman Deepak Kochhar, husband of ex-ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar, in the alleged ICICI Bank- Videocon money laundering case.

A single-judge bench of Justice Prakash D Naik granted the bail on furnishing a personal bond of Rs. 3 lakh and sureties. The court also ordered him to surrender his passport and co-operate with the probe. A special court had rejected Deepak’s bail plea in November 2020. Deepak Kochhar was arrested in September 2020 in connection with its money laundering probe into loans disbursed by ICICI Bank to Videocon group for alleged pecuniary considerations.

ED is probing Deepak and Chanda Kochhar apart from Videocon Group promoter VN Dhoot for alleged money laundering in the matter of loans disbursed to the Videocon Group by the ICICI Bank. The loans later turned Non-Performing Assets (NPA). Videocon Group had allegedly made investments into companies held by Deepak Kochhar after disbursal of loans cleared by Chanda.

According to ED, its probe has revealed that loans were refinanced and new loan aggregating to Rs 1,730 crore was sanctioned to M/s Videocon Industries Limited (VIL) and its group companies. These loans became NPA for ICICI Bank on June 30, 2017. It has also alleged that Chanda Kochhar, who took an early retirement in October last year in the wake of allegations, had accepted “illegal gratification through her husband” Deepak Kochhar, in whose company Vidocon group made investments after it was granted loans by the ICICI Bank.

On March 31, 2018, The Indian Express had first reported how in December 2008, Venugopal Dhoot of the Videocon Group set up a company with Deepak Kochhar and two of Chanda Kochhar’s relatives; then gave a Rs 64-crore loan to this company through a fully owned entity before he transferred the latter’s ownership to a trust headed by Deepak Kochhar for just Rs 9 lakh.

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