ICICI Bank-Videocon case: RBI’s probe two years ago could not "conclusively establish" allegations

This comes amid the debate on the silence of the banking regulator in the ongoing developments in the ICICI bank-Videocon group allegations and subsequent investigations by various government agencies.

Since it was first flagged by a whistleblower in October 2016 through a letter to the Prime Minister, RBI, SEBI, CBI and other government entities, RBI has not made public whether it has made any inquiries with ICICI Bank on the sanctioning of loans to Videocon Industries in the last two years.

According to a DNA report, in 2016, when Raghuram Rajan was the governor, RBI had questioned ICICI bank on the criteria it had adopted to disburse loans of Rs 3,250 crore to Videocon Industries as part of the consortium. "Ever since the bank answered all the queries, the regulator did not press for any further enquiries, which may have put to rest the need for further investigation," it said quoting a source.

Public records suggest that Chanda Kochhar’s husband Deepak Kochhar and Videocon Group promoter Venugopal Dhoot, in December 2008, established an energy company named NuPower Renewables, from which Dhoot resigned after a month.

Supreme Energy, a company owned by Dhoot, later extended a Rs 64-crore convertible loan to NuPower and later Dhoot went on to sell his 99.9 percent stake in Supreme Energy to another director, who in turn sold it to a trust controlled by Kochhar for Rs 99,900.

The RBI findings traced investments into NuPower Renewables, that included an investment of Rs 325 crore through the “automatic route” from Mauritius-based firm First Land Holding into NuPower. Ownership details of this offshore entity, according to RBI’s findings, “could not be traced”, the report said.

It added the RBI findings state that while ICICI Bank had declared NuPower Renewables as a “related party from October 2015”, it had not done so in the case of three companies — Pacific Capital Services, Pinnacle Energy and Supreme Energy.