National

The Bogus Raids on Chanda Kochhar

The newspapers report that the residence of Chanda Kochhar in Mumbai, together with the various office premises of her husband Deepak Kochhar, were intensively raided by the Enforcement Directorate, in pursuit of criminal charges of money laundering etc. against her. The ED also raided various premises of the Videocon Group, as also the Matix Group an offshoot of Essar, on account of their huge investments in Nu Power Renewables, the Deepak Kochhar company, in consideration of, as quid pro quo for huge loans sanctioned by ICICI Bank to Videocon and Essar, at a time when Chanda Kochhar was its CEO, which have incidentally turned bad, inflicting huge losses to ICICI bank.

 

The ED is reported to have seized documents, related materials and electronic items and to have interrogated the Kochhars, the Dhoots of Videocon, as also Nishant Kanodia, the Matrix Group promoter and son in law of Shashikant Ruia of Essar. As part of procedure, Chanda Kochhar was thereafter summoned to the ED office the next day, for detailed questioning and confronting her with the materials and evidence found/seized, during the course of the raid. A hard disk has been seized, which is likely to give leads to any incriminating communication related to these huge investments by Videocon and Essar in Deepak Kochhar’s company, to support the charges of corruption and money laundering against the Kochhar’s.

 

The ED case is based on the FIR registered by CBI, in the matter of loans sanctioned by ICICI to Videocon during June 2009 to October 2011, when Chanda Kochhar was the MD of the bank and was a key member of the Bank’s credit committee that sanctioned these loans on many occasions. She is accused by the CBI of the most serious charges of having received illegal gratifications, cheating and abuse of her position and dishonestly sanctioning loans to the Videocon Group. Similar charges are imminent in the case of loans sanctioned to the Essar Group, where investments were round tripped through foreign entities of Matix into Nu Power Renewables.

 

The charges that Chanda Kochhar faces are the most serious ones ie. corruption, cheating, illegal sanctioning of loans and abuse of position. It was clear at the very inception in April 2018 itself, when the CBI registered a preliminary enquiry in the case, that the Kochhars did indulge in criminal practices. At that point of time the Income tax Department too had commenced its investigation, and a request to raid Chanda Kochhar/Deepak Kochhar and others was put up, but was strangely not granted. Looking to the gravity of the situation and the seriousness of charges and the fact that Chanda Kochhar was a very powerful, influential and well networked banker, what was needed was an immediate raid by all these agencies viz. the ED/CBI/ITD, in order to prevent the tampering/destruction of evidence and the manipulation of witnesses. The raids should have taken place in April/May 2018, and not now, after a year’s delay, which is sufficient time period for any accused to destroy evidence.

 

The efficacy of any raid lies in it being sudden, swift and with a surprise. A surprise element ensures that the accused is caught unawares and crucial evidence is not destroyed. This one had none. A raid after a year, is of little value, and looks like the conduct of an empty formality. It is what we call on amicable action, which is meant to yield little. The more delayed a raid, the more are the chances that evidence would have been destroyed. This evidence would have been by way of correspondence, messages, documents to prove that the investments by Videocon and Essar into NuPower were a quid pro quo for loans given and that Chanda Kochhar was aware of it, which she vehemently denies at present. A year is too long a time, not just to destroy evidence, but to also create new evidence and records, to distort the case. The present raid by the ED is too delayed and to us is a mere farce and only proves that the system has sided with her. With such weak and managed investigation, which is meant to yield no incriminating evidence, you can be sure that she will be held not guilty by courts in due course of time.

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