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Saturday 31 March 2018

ICICI Videocon sweet deal,CBI to probe whistleblower's laundering charges against Kochhar's husband (NewsX)



In this season of bank fraud and amids News X’ ongoing 100 day NPA campaign now comes allegation of yet another potential banking scam And the name of one of India’s best known bankers has been dragged in A whistleblower claims there is "evidence" to suggest that ICICI Bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar and her family were "a huge beneficiary" of a loan sanctioned to the Videocon Group by ICICI bank itself The whistleblower Arvind Gupta says the govt must order an investigation and audit to check why a massive loan was given to a sinking company ICICI Bank sanctioned a loan worth 3,250 crore to the Videocon Group In its defence the bank says its loan to Videocon was as part of a consortium of more than 20 banks and financial institutions The trouble is a big part of this loan over 2,800 crore was declared a Non Performing Asset in 2017 And ICICI Bank MD chanda Kochar’s husband Deepak Kochar has been a business partner of Videocon Group Chairman…Venugopal Dhoot And so the allegation is that Deepak Kochhar is an indirect beneficiary of the loan granted to Videocon Among other things this episode raises serious questions about a conflict of interests as Chanda Kochar was on the panel that sanctioned this loan. The CBI has filed a preliminary enquiry against her husband. Deepak Kochhar and will decide at a later stage there are grounds to file an FIR.Whether. Chanda Kochhar will be summoned will be decided after the relevant documents are examined. The question is simply this Is the Videocon bad loanmore evidence of India’s growing banking crisis?Does this mean that it is not the public sector banks alone but even private banks that have major exposure to many of these frauds?Just how deep is this banking sector rot? How is the govt going to restore public confidence in the banking system which has been completely shattered ? Also while it is yet to be determined if there was indeed a quid pro quo involved in this particular instance is ICICI MD Chanda Kochhar at the very least guilty of a conflict of interests?

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