ICICI Bank loan case: Special CBI court reserves order on Rajiv Kochhar's plea seeking cancellation of lookout circular

A special court has reserved order on the application of Rajiv Kochhar, brother-in-law of ICICI Bank’s former CEO Chanda Kochhar, seeking cancellation of the lookout circular issued against him in an alleged bank loan fraud and money laundering case. Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) judge Anju Bajaj Chanana has reserved the order for 7 June.

A special court reserves order on the application of Rajiv Kochhar (brother of Deepak Kochhar) seeking cancellation of Look Out Circular (LOC) issued against him. Special CBI judge Anju Bajaj Chanana has reserved the order for 7 June.

— ANI (@ANI) June 3, 2019

Last month Rajiv had moved Delhi High Court seeking cancellation of the lookout circular against him in an alleged bank loan fraud and money laundering case. Kochhar and her husband Deepak along with Rajiv have been questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is probing a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with ICICI Bank’s Rs 3,250-crore loan to Videocon Group in 2012. [caption id=“attachment_6463751” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Rajiv Kochhar. Reuters[/caption] Rajiv has been questioned by the CBI as well in the same case in the past also. He is the founder of Singapore-based Avista Advisory. Rajiv was asked by the CBI sleuths about the help he had extended to Videocon in relation to a loan from ICICI Bank, which was part of a Rs 40,000-crore credit given by a consortium of 20 banks to the group’s main promoter, Venugopal Dhoot. The searches were conducted at the premises of Kochhar, her family, and Dhoot in Mumbai and Aurangabad. Early this year, the ED had registered a criminal case under the PMLA against Kochhar, Deepak, Dhoot and others to probe alleged irregularities and corrupt practices in ICICI Bank granting Rs 1,875-crore loans to the corporate group. In April this year, a Singapore-based whistleblower  in a letter, alleged that Rajiv and Deepak “used to take kickbacks from corporate promoters for loans sanctioned by the lender.” The whistleblower wrote to the ED, the CBI and Singapore investigators alleging that Deepak and Rajiv were running multiple companies in Singapore, Cayman Islands and India and the primary activity of these firms was to take advisory fees on the loans to be arranged by ICICI Bank. — With PTI inputs