The Enforcement Directorate (ED), investigating links between former ICICI Bank managing director and chief executive officer Chanda Kochhar and the Videocon Group, has expanded its probe into a total of 24 loans aggregating Rs 7,862 crore that, it believes, were loaned “illegally and criminally” by the bank to the conglomerate when she was in charge between 2009 and 2018.
Both ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which started looking at quid-pro-quos between Videocon Group chief Venugopal Dhoot and Kochhar after it emerged (courtesy, a whistle-blower) that the businessman was an investor in Kochhar’s husband, Deepak Kochhar’s company, were initially focusing on six high-value loans worth Rs 1,875 crore given by the bank to Videocon Group companies between 2009 and 2011, as alleged in the CBI FIR.
