MUMBAI: A CBI plea to invoke the major offence of criminal breach of trust versus former ICICI Bank CEO and MD Chanda Kochhar in a loan fraud case was accepted by a special court on Friday.
The charge under section 409 of the Indian Penal Code draws in a maximum sentence of life jail time.
If it is transpired to the examining officer that any specific section is needed to be added or deleted on the basis of material collected by him, he can effectively include or erase the section and can intimate about it to the court.
It is not required for him to look for previous permission of the court, the court said in an 18-page order.Chanda Kocchar, her other half Deepak Kochhar and former Videocon chairperson V N Dhoot are accused in a cheating and corruption case.
While the Kocchars were approved bail by the Bombay high court today, Dhoot remains in judicial custody.
Area 409 associates with criminal breach of trust by a public servant, lender, merchant or agent.The court also concurred with CBI special public prosecutor A Limosins argument that at this stage, the implicated is neither needed to be heard nor does she have a locus on the plea.
The defence was not directed to send its reply though Chanda Kochhar had submitted one while in custody after the CBIs plea to conjure up the charge on December 24, the day the Kochhars were arrested.The supporter for the implicated submitted that within the narrow compass when the rights of the accused are affected, they have the restricted right of being heard.
Section 409 IPC was being included for extraneous functions ...
it is a mala fide action to stop what is accumulating to (her), her legal representative had actually said throughout the remand hearing.The CBI submitted its FIR on January 22, 2019, against the Kochhars, Dhoot and Videocon in addition to Supreme Energies Pvt Ltd for triggering a loss of over Rs 1,730 crore to ICICI Bank by sanctioning loans to Videocon in contravention of the banks rules and policies.The CBI alleged that Chanda Kochhar received Rs 64 crore kickbacks from Videocon for her own use (through a financial investment in her other halfs company).
As part of another quid professional quo, Videocon transferred a flat (valued at Rs.
5.3 crore in 1996) to Quality Advisor, a household trust of Deepak Kochhar, for Rs 11 lakh in 2016.