ED provisionally attaches property of Rs 78.15 crore belonging to Chanda Kochhar, her husband

Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached movable and immovable assets consisting of flat, land, seized cash, plant and machinery, located in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, totalling Rs 78.15 crores in possession of former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar, her husband Deepak Kochhar and the companies owned or controlled by him.

The assets were attached under the under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in ICICI Bank loan case, an official release said on Friday.

ED initiated an investigation after registering a case under PMLA on the basis of FIR for illegal sanctioning loans amounting to Rs 1875 crore to Videocon Group of companies, the release said.

"Investigations under PMLA revealed that loans were refinanced and new loan aggregating to Rs 1,730 crore was sanctioned to Videocon Industries Limited (VIL) and its group companies and these loans became Non Performing Assets (NPA) for ICICI Bank on June 30, 2017," the release said.

It said the investigation revealed that Rs 64 crore, out of loan of Rs 300 crore sanctioned by a committee headed by Chanda Kochhar to Videocon International Electronics Limited, was transferred to Nupower Renewables Pvt. Ltd. (NRPL, earlier known as NuPower Renewables Limited, a company of Deepak Kochhar, husband of Chanda Kochhar) by VIL on September 8, 2009, just one day after disbursement of loan by ICICI Bank.

"Further, net revenue of Rs 10.65 crores was generated by NRL from these tainted funds. Therefore, proceeds of crime amounting to Rs 74.65 crores were transferred to/generated in NRPL," it added.

The release said that during the course of investigations, it came to light that Kochhar and her family had acquired an apartment in Mumbai, "owned by one of the Videocon group Companies, by way of acquiring that company through her family trust at a nominal price by creating book entries."

"The assets amounting to Rs 74.54 crore held in the name of M/S Nupower Renewables Pvt Ltd and subsidiaries, flat located in Mumbai and amount of Rs 10.5 lakh cash already seized were provisionally attached by the ED under PMLA," the release said.