Videocon founder Venugopal Dhoot gets interim bail in ICICI Bank loan fraud case

Venugopal Dhoot, along with former ICICI Bank MD & CEO Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar, is being investigated in the ICICI Bank-Videocon loan fraud case, which was filed in 2019.

The Bombay High Court today granted interim bail to Videocon's Venugopal Dhoot in a loan fraud case linked to ICICI Bank.

A division bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and P K Chavan granted bail to Dhoot on a surety of Rs one lakh. The court permitted him to furnish cash bail and then deposit the surety amount two weeks thereafter.

The bench also refused the CBI's request to stay its order so that it could approach the Supreme Court in appeal.

His lawyer had argued that his arrest was unwarranted as he cooperating with the probe.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), on the other hand, claimed that he was trying to avoid probe, reported news agency PTI.

Dhoot, arrested by the CBI on December 26, 2022, and presently in judicial custody, has moved the high court seeking to quash the First Information Report, and has also sought interim bail.

Post the arrest, on January 10, Bombay HC had directed the probe agency to file by Friday (January 13) its affidavit in response to Dhoot's plea seeking to quash an FIR registered against him, to declare his arrest as ''arbitrary and illegal'' and to be released on bail.