Whistleblowers exposed huge upsides in the banking sector
- Arrest of Kochhar couple proved illegal
- Occasional
- Chanda Kochhar issued a loan of Rs 3,000 crore to a company that could not pay the loan.
- Chanda Kochhar Deepak Kochhar
When Manuni, considered the queen of finance and ranked among the most successful women in banking, was arrested in a corruption case, waves were created. Along with Chanda Kochhar, her husband Deepak Kochhar was also jailed.
Now the Bombay High Court has ruled the arrest of this couture couple illegal and has challenged the CBI officials who arrested them. The court has rightly reprimanded the officials of the investigating agency, as neither Chanda Kochhar nor Deepak Kochhar were going to flee the country. He was cooperating fully during the proceedings of the case.
Chanda Kochhar's reputation in the banking sector was tarnished by the Videocon loan case. Although Chanda Kochhar's arrest was illegal, the corruption case against her is still pending. Besides Chanda Kochhar and Deepak Kochhar, Videocon owner Venukumar Dhoot was also arrested.
This case was filed for allocating a loan of approximately 3,000 crores to Videocon. Chanda Kochhar was a surveyor at ICICI Bank. She came into the conversation of her husband's friend and Videocon owner Venukumar Dhoot and issued a huge loan to his company which was unable to repay the loan.
CBI officials could not explain why there was a rush to arrest Chanda Kochhar. The Kochhar couple was present in every term of the court, providing the documents that the investigating agencies wanted, so why the arrest?
Non-performing assets (NPAs) of banks run into billions due to arbitrariness and corruption in approving loans through bank directors. Today, the total NPA of banks is approximately Rs 21,532 crore.
Before this scam came to light, no one had the guts to point a finger at Chanda Kochhar, the former head of ICICI Bank. He used to have meetings with finance ministers. Chanda Kochhar started her career with ICICI Bank and eventually became the CEO.
In 2016, a whistleblower named Arvind Gupta had written to ICICI Bank that Chanda Kochhar had misappropriated the loan given to Videocon or that Gobachari was an executive, in this case the bank's money was sinking. However, Chanda Kochhar was such that the higher officials of the board were not even ready to hear the complaint against him.
Tired of complaining to the bank, the whistleblower finally wrote to Prime Minister Modi and sent the details, leading to the revelation of the ICICI Bank-Videocon scam. Chanda Kochhar's direct involvement in the scam was revealed.
It is said that in Videocon's loan application, the first signature was done by the head of the bank, Chanda Kochhar, followed by the signatures of the officers below and those who went to the spot for checking.
In short, the loan was sanctioned from above. If the Modi government had not supported the power of the whistle blower, the Kochhar couple would not have been jailed. Chanda Kochhar's influence on the bank's management was so great that no one was ready to take action against him. Finally the government's strict instructions were implemented.
Mumbai-based Bychalla women's jail has a capacity of 262 inmates, but about 400 women were crammed into it. Chanda Kochhar was allowed to order food from her home as a special concession in view of her health while confined in this jail.
Chanda Kochhar, Deepak Kochhar, Deepak Kochhar's brother and Venukumar Dhoot were portrayed by the whistleblower as the Chandal quartet. An ordinary householder has to push several times in the bank for a loan, but here the businessman's wife was the bank manager herself, so what is there to ask.
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