Bombay HC: Prima facie removal of Kochhar as ICICI Bank CEO valid

The Bombay High Court (HC) on Thursday ruled that Chanda Kochhar’s termination from the post of managing director and chief executive officer (MD&CEO) of ICICI Bank was prima facie valid. It also found invalid the contention Kochhar that once there is cessation of employer and employee relationship then the acceptance of early retirement cannot be revoked.

“Prima facie, I find that the revocation of the early retirement acceptance is valid and do not find, given the facts in the present case, any merit in the contention on behalf of Mrs. Kochhar that once there is cessation of employer and employee relationship, then acceptance of early retirement cannot be revoked”, said a single judge bench of Justice R I Chagla.

In the order the Judge said that the bank was justified in revoking acceptance of early retirement of Kochhar as they had accepted it without having complete knowledge of the facts, including non-disclosure by Kochhar of various facts which were only learnt of upon receipt of the enquiry report by Justice Srikrishna.

The High Court dismissed Kocchar’s interim application and passed on order on the banks’ application saying, Kochhar is restrained from dealing with any of the 690,000 ESOPs already exercised by her during the period from 4th October, 2018 to 30th January, 2019.

Further the order said, Kochhar will disclose if she has sold or dealt with any of such shares as well as disclose her gain from such sale which shall be by way of affidavit of disclosure to be filed by her within six weeks.

The bank had filed an application seeking a direction to Kochhar to not deal with the shares and sought for full disclosure of the profits she had made.