Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), the regulator for securities market in the country, will summon ICICI Bank's CEO Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar for questioning.
Sebi will summon the husband-wife duo in regard to a probe into the bank's regulatory lapses made by Deepak's business dealings, reports Business Standard.
Some other top bank officials and those from Videocon, which is alleged to have gained from association with Deepak, will also be called to answer charges against them. This may result in the bank and Chanda being fined several crores of rupees and a ban from markets and directorships.
The Sebi board, which will meet next week, will discuss the multi-agency probe into ICICI Bank and business dealings of the Kochhar family as it feels that coordinated efforts are needed to be taken by Sebi, the Reserve Bank of India and the Central government in the case.
ICICI and Kochhar have denied violating any regulation, and she insists that she was not aware of any business dealings involving her husband.
Sebi issued show cause notices to ICICI Bank, Kochhar and others after it found out that they had allegedly violated disclosure norms regarding 'conflict of interest' in business dealings of Deepak with the Videocon group. Both Kochhar and the bank have maintained that they had no information about Deepak's business dealings.
Sebi says ICICI and Kochhar can't claim innocence in the matter as they have been listing Deepak's name as a 'related party' in the regulatory filings of the company. SEC, the US markets regulator, where the company has submitted its latest annual filing, is also probing the case.
SEC may settle the matter after accepting some settlement fees but in India, things will end not so smoothly although the bank has indicated that it is willing to do the same here.
ICICI Bank is being probed for serious allegations, which include non-disclosure lapses regarding Deepak and his brother's dealings which are suspected to be directly or indirectly linked to the bank or its borrowers.
ICICI Bank is looking at penalties of up to Rs 25 crore while Kochhar may be fined up to Rs 10 crore besides other penal actions.
