The Enforcement Directorate (ED) grilled Rajiv Kochhar, former ICICI Bank chief Chanda Kochhar's brother-in-law, for the third consecutive day in connection with the Videocon-ICICI Bank case. The ED said that Rajiv Kochhar withheld crucial information pertaining to the investigation.
Meanwhile, Chanda Kochhar who is scheduled to appear before the ED on May 3 has requested the agency to postpone her questioning by a few days citing personal reasons. Her husband, Deepak Kochhar has also asked the ED to postpone his session. Sources told India Today that the husband-wife duo will be summoned by the ED on May 10 or after that.
Sources also told India Today that the agency asked Chanda Kochhar to appear before the ED with a list of assets, both moveable and immoveable. She has also been asked to give a list of disclosures made to Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and other regulators when she was heading ICICI Bank.
Moreover, Deepak and Rajiv Kochhar have also been summoned by the ED on April 30.
Trouble seems to be brewing for Chanda Kochhar whose role is being probed by the ED in loan sanctions to private firms, apart from the existing Videocon and Matix Fertilisers case, when she was heading ICICI Bank.
One such loan, as mentioned by the sources, was sanctioned to Sterling Biotech Limited, owned by Nitin Sandesara and Chetan Sandesara. ED suspects that Deepak Kochhar's firm was benefited from loans sanctioned by Chanda Kochhar to this firm. The Sandesaras are absconding from India and are believed to be in Albania.
Apart from Sterling Biotech, ED also suspects that bribe was paid in terms of investment to Deepak Kochhar's firm in exchange for loan to Bhushan Steel that is already under probe by CBI.
Also read: Chanda Kochhar's fall from grace-here is how she was caught, step by step