Court rejects Kochhars’ plea for home-cooked food, beds

A special court on Thursday rejected the pleas of former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar for home-cooked food and beds.

The special CBI court in Mumbai rejected the plea of the former ICICI Bank CEO requesting home food, a chair, and a mattress while at the Byculla women’s jail, where she is currently detained. A similar plea by her husband, Deepak Kocchar, was rejected. Deepak Kocchar is currently detained in Arthur Road jail.

The court did, however, instruct jail authorities to provide the Kochhars with food according to their medical conditions, after consulting with the medical officers of the jails they are currently staying at.

In addition to the plea, the court also rejected the plea of Videocon founder Venugopal Dhoot, who alleged that Dhoot’s arrest in relation to the case was illegal. Dhoot challenged his arrest as illegal citing that the investigating officer came under pressure after Kochhar’s arrest. Special Judge M R Purwar rejected the plea, not finding any merit in the argument.

In a CBI FIR reportedly filed back in 2019, the probing agency allegedly claimed that Kochhar had sanctioned Rs 3,250 crore as a loan from ICICI Bank in 2012 and Dhoot invested crores just months later in Nupower.

The former Managing Director and CEO of ICICI bank, Chanda Kochhar (59) had been awarded the Padma Bhusan back in 2011. She was also named in Forbes’ list of ‘The 100 most powerful women’ seven years in a row. Kochhar resigned as the CEO of ICICI bank back in October 2018 due to allegations of her favouring the Videocon Group.