Look-out notices issued for Kochhars, Venugopal Dhoot?

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday is understood to have issued look-out notices at all major airports for ICICI Bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar, her husband Deepak Kochhar, and Videocon Group Chairman Venugopal Dhoot. Deepak Kochhar is the promoter of NuPower Renewables.

“This is misleading news,” Venugopal Dhoot told BusinessLine , when asked about the notice. He also declined to comment on the investigation over alleged irregularities in the grant of the loan.

On Thursday, the CBI had detained Chanda Kochhar’s brother-in-law Rajiv Kochhar, who is the Founder and CEO of Avista Advisory, to question him on possible links to ICICI Bank sanctioning a ₹3,250-crore loan to the Videocon Group in 2012.

The CBI continued its questioning of Rajiv Kochhar on Friday. He was let off in the evening, but may be summoned again next week, sources said.

The agency is also expected to summon some officials of ICICI Bank and the Videocon Group next week.

Rajiv Kochhar’s Avista Advisory is a financial services company with offices in Singapore and Mumbai. After the CBI issued a look-out notice for him, Kochhar was detained at the Mumbai airport on Thursday, just as he was about to leave for a South-East Asian country.

It is learnt that the CBI has already registered a preliminary probe naming Dhoot, Deepak Kochhar and unidentified others in connection with the loan.

Meanwhile, ICICI Bank on Friday said that its Board of Directors will meet on May 7. In a disclosure to the Bombay Stock Exchange, the bank said its Board will “consider the approval of the audited annual accounts for the financial year ended March 31, 2018.”

Earlier this week, the ICICI Bank Board had issued a statement reposing “full faith and confidence” in Chanda Kochhar and had said that a review found the the bank’s internal processes for credit approval to be robust.

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