Bombay High Court grants interim bail to Venugopal Dhoot
- ByStartupStory | January 20, 2023
Venugopal Dhoot, the founder and chairman of Videocon Group, was granted interim bail by the Bombay High Court on Friday. Dhoot petitioned the Supreme Court after co-accused Chanda Kochhar, former managing director and CEO of ICICI Bank, and her husband were granted bail.
Dhoot’s petition was heard by a division bench consisting of justices Revati Mohite Dere and Prithviraj Chavan. Earlier, in the Videocon bank fraud case, ICICI Bank’s former CEO and managing director Chanda Kochhar and her husband, Deepak Kochhar, were released from jail on Tuesday.
They were released the next day after the Supreme Court ruled that their arrest was “in accordance with the law” The Kochhars were arrested on December 23, 2017, and were taken into custody six days later. The high court had ordered the CBI to file an affidavit by January 13 in response to Dhoot’s petition, which sought to quash the FIR registered against him in the case, declare his arrest “arbitrary and illegal,” and release him on bail.
The Kochhars, Dhoot, Nupower Renewables (NRL), managed by Deepak Kochhar, Supreme Energy, Videocon International Electronics, and Videocon Industries were named as defendants in the FIR filed in 2019 under IPC sections related to criminal conspiracy and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
According to the CBI, from 2009 to 2018, the private sector lender ICICI Bank, led by Chanda Kochhar, sanctioned credit facilities totaling Rs 3,250 crore to these companies in violation of norms. Dhoot is also accused of investing Rs 64 crore in Nupower through Supreme Energy Pvt Ltd (SEPL) and then transferring SEPL to Pinnacle Energy Trust managed by Deepak Kochhar via a convoluted process between 2010 and 2012.
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