Videocon Chairman Venugopal Dhoop arrested by CBI in ICICI Bank Fraud Case
- ByStartupStory | December 26, 2022
On Monday, the CBI arrested Videocon Chairman Venugopal Dhoot in connection with the ICICI bank fraud investigation. This comes just days after the agency arrested Chanda Kochhar, the former CEO and Managing Director of ICICI Bank, and her husband, Deepak Kochhar, on December 23.
On Saturday, a special CBI court remanded the couple and revealed that Kochhar was assisted by Dhoot in obtaining ownership of Nupower Renewables Ltd. (NRL). Deepak Kochhar, Venugopal Dhoot, and Saurabh Dhoot were the company’s first directors when it was founded on December 24, 2008.
In 2009, Venugopal Dhoot and Saurabh Dhoot resigned as directors of the company. However, before resigning as a director, Venugopal Dhoot granted Deepak Kochhar 1,997,500 warrants at a rate of Rs 10 per warrant, with an initial payment of Rs 1 per warrant.
The shares of NRL held by Venugopal Dhoot and Deepak Kochhar’s Pacific Capital Services Pvt Ltd were transferred to SEPL in 2009, making SEPL a 95% shareholder of NRL.
Supreme Energy Pvt Ltd (SEPL) was founded in 2008 by Venugopal Dhoot (9,990 shares) and his associate Vasant Kakade (10 shares). In 2009, Venugopal Dhoot resigned as a director of SEPL and transferred control of the company to Deepak Kochhar by transferring his shares to Pinnacle Energy Trust (PET).
The CBI also claims that when Chanda took over at ICICI Bank, six loans were wrongfully granted to various Videocon companies. The federal agency also claims she influenced other committees to approve loans to the Videocon group.
The agency had alleged fraud and irregularities in loans made to the Videocon group by the bank between 2009 and 2011, when Kochhar was the bank’s CEO.
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