9 Jan 2023 10:48 AM
The Bombay High Court on Monday directed the release of former ICICI bank CEO and MD Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar in a petition alleging illegal arrest. The order is interim in nature.
The division bench of Justice Revati Mohite Dere and Justice Prithvi Raj Chavan had reserved the petition for orders on Friday.
The arrest is not in accordance with the mandate of 41A of the CRPC, said the court while pronouncing the order.
The duo approached the court in two separate petitioners and sought quashing of the FIR by the CBI and remand orders in the case regarding irregularities in loans granted to Venugopal Dhoot’s Videocon Group by ICICI Bank between 2009-2012. They sought interim relief of release.
The court last week made it clear that it was not entertaining Kochhars’ petitions because of their son’s wedding but purely on the compliance or not of Section 41A of the CrPC, under which a notice was issued to them.
Senior Advocate Amit Desai represented Chanda Kochhar while Senior Advocate Vikram Chaudhri appeared for her husband.
They submitted that since the Kochhar’s had appeared before the investigating agency in compliance of Section 41A(3) of the CrPC, there was no need to arrest them. Further that they had cooperated with investigators, providing hundreds of pages in documents right from the outset.
Desai also submitted that the arrest memo did not have the signature of a female officer. As for Deepak Kochhar, Chaudhuri submitted he was previously arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in the PMLA case and subsequently released on bail after the appellate authority refused to confirm attachment of his assets.
Their petition questioned the timing of the arrest as their son’s wedding is scheduled in January itself. Kochhars’ only son is scheduled to be married on January 15 and functions were to start shortly. This leads to the belief, that to be arrested on the eve of the wedding of her son, after 4 years of the FIR despite the settled law was actuated by malafides, the plea states.
The Case
The CBI began investigating the couple in January 2018 after reports that Videocon’s Dhoot paid a firm he had allegedly set up with Deepak and two relatives, six months after his firm got a Rs 3,250 crore loan from ICICI Bank in 2012.
The irregularities were with regard to the grant of six high-value loans worth around Rs 1,575 crore to five firms of the Videocon Group between June 2009 and October 2011. The loans were granted in contravention of the rules and policy of sanctioning committee, the agency has alleged.
These loans were later termed as non-performing assets resulting in wrongful loss to ICICI bank and wrongful gain to the borrowers and accused persons, the CBI said. The total misappropriation is to the tune of Rs.1,730 crore as of April 26, 2012.
After the FIR was registered in 2019, Deepak Kochhar was summoned over eight times and submitted nearly 2500 pages of evidence, according to the petition. Chanda Kochhar has said she was summoned for the first time earlier this year and was arrested soon after she was summoned for the second time.
Arguments
Senior Advocate Amit Desai for Chanda Kochhar submitted that she hadn’t been summoned till July 2022. However, once summoned, she appeared. When summons were issued to her the second time, on December 15, 2022, she appeared on December 23, 2022, after a perfunctory interrogation, Desai said.
What prompted issuance of notice under Section 41A of the Cr.P.C. five months later on December 15, 2022, and the subsequent arrest?, he asked on Friday.
Section 41A of the CrPC, provides that a notice of appearance before police officer is required to be given in certain type of offences. “The law mandates that a person who complies with the notice must not be arrested unless the officer records reasons”, Desai said.
The arrest memo alleges that Kochhar hasn’t been co-operating and disclosing true facts. Desai stated that there are 210 pages of statements and 810 pages of documents given by Kochhar to the investigating agency which are admissible against her. Still, the investigating officer is saying there is no cooperation and Kochhars are giving vague replies, Desai added.
