Chanda Kochhar, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ICICI bank, has denied her alleged involvement in the conflict of interest case involving her husband and Videocon.
The market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), has given a show cause notice to Kochhar. Business Standard reported that in a response to the notice, Kocchar said that she was unaware of the business dealings between husband Deepak Kochhar, promoter of NuPower Renewables, and Videocon group promoter Venugopal Dhoot.
Now, as a part of adjudication proceedings, Chanda and other ICICI bank representatives will be called by the market regulator for a personal hearing.
In the response, she said that "The interest of the Videocon group directly or indirectly in the company owned/managed by Deepak Kochhar was never brought to the notice of the MD and CEO since both had their professional lives and were bound by respective confidentiality clauses."
Calling all the charges baseless, Kochhar argued that all the requisite disclosures were adhered to by her and was in accordance with the code of conduct of the bank mandated for its top management and senior employees.
Defending her position, she added, "The bank procedures are independent of any individual being in a position to influence the outcome. This includes bank executives from the account manager to the head of business, so the cases not meriting processing would not reach the credit committee." She also said that the credit committee has independent directors to scrutinise the loan dealings.
Elaborating the chronology of events, she explained that she had limited roles in loan proceeds and particularly in the case of Videocon Industries.
The records of the ICICI bank show that Chanda was not the chairperson of the committee which sanctioned the loan to Videocon group in 2012; the committee was headed by KV Kamath. As approved by a consortium of 20 banks, ICICI bank proceeded Rs 32 billion loans to Videocon industry which was later declared as a non-performing asset (NPA) in the last fiscal year.
She further added that she was just a part of the committee without having any veto power and claimed that she was a part of only 8 out of 30 meetings held for the Videocon group ever since she assumed office and MD and CEO of the bank.
