IT serves notice to Chanda Kochhar’s husband

DAINIK NATION BUREAU

The Income Tax Department has issued a notice to Deepak Kochhar, husband of ICICI bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar, in connection with its tax evasion probe in the VideoconBSE 4.99 % bank loan case, officials said.

They said the notice has been issued, under section 131 (power regarding discovery, production of evidence) of the I-T Act, to Deepak Kochhar in his capacity as the Managing Director (MD) of the firm NuPower Renewables.

He has been asked, they said, to furnish details of his personal finances, Income Tax Returns (ITRs) for the last few years and business transactions with the firm apart from other financial details of the company.

The department has also sent a detailed questionnaire, seeking details of the firm’s operations, to be answered by him. The tax department has launched a probe into the finances of the company and those associated with it, the officials said.

Few more notices have been sent to the people associated with the firm and based on their replies, further action will be taken, they said.  In a related development, the CBI officials said that Deepak Kochhar, who has been named in a preliminary enquiry, will be called for questioning soon.

The CBI had questioned a few ICICI bank officials as part of a preliminary enquiry to find out if any quid pro quo was involved in the bank issuing a Rs 3,250 crore loan to the Videocon Group in 2012.

The loan had recently made news after reports questioned it and linked it to a possible quid pro quo that Videocon group promoter Venugopal Dhoot allegedly had with NuPower Renewables, a company founded by Deepak Kochchar.

The CBI enquiry had named Dhoot, Deepak Kochhar and unidentified others, officials said. A preliminary enquiry (PE) is a precursor before the agency lodges an FIR to probe criminal charges on the basis of evidence collected during the former exercise.

Last week, the ICICI Bank board came out in support of Chanda Kochhar, saying it has full faith and confidence in her and described reports against her over the credit disbursement to Videocon group as “malicious and unfounded rumours”.

The board had also reviewed the banks internal processes for credit approval and found them robust, the private sector lender had said in a statement. With regard to loans to the Videocon group, the board had said the banks current exposure is ipart of a syndicated consortium arrangement.

“ICICI Bank was not the lead bank for this consortium and the bank only sanctioned its share of facilities aggregating approximately Rs 3,250 crore which was less than 10 per cent of the total consortium facility in April 2012,” it had said.

The bank had clarified that none of the investors of NuPower Renewables are borrowers of ICICI Bank.

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