New Delhi: The Bombay high court has said that the Central Bureau of Investigation’s arrest of former ICICI Bank Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar was “illegal” and an “abuse of power”.“Such routine arrest without application of mind and due regard to the law amounts to an abuse of power and does not satisfy the requirement of Section 41A(3) CrPC,” the division bench of Justices Anuja Parbhudessai and N.R. Borkar said, according to LiveLaw.The court’s full order from February 6 was made public on Monday.The CBI has been unable to demonstrate the existence of circumstances or supportive material based on which the decision to arrest was taken, the court said, and that makes the arrest illegal.The CBI’s contention that the couple was not cooperating with the probe also did not hold water with the court. “The right to silence emanates from Article 20(3) of the Indian Constitution, which gives an accused the right against self-incrimination. Suffice it to say that exercise of the right to remain silent cannot be equated with non-cooperation,” the order stated.The couple was arrested on December 23, 2022, in the Videocon-ICICI Bank loan case. The CBI’s FIR in the case had been filed in 2019 against the Kochhars, Venugopal Dhoot and others. The allegations were that ICICI Bank sanctioned six loans to Videocon Group companies after Chanda took charge between 2009 and 2011. In return, Videocon invested in Nupower, a company linked to Deepak.The Kochhars approached the high court almost immediately after their arrest, saying there was no material evidence against them. The were granted bail in the court’s interim order on January 9 this year.
