 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today, we are going to discuss the FIR that the CBI has filed against Chanda Coacher formerly the CEO of ICICI Bank, her husband Deepak Coacher and Vanu Gopal Dhooth of Videocon. Paranjay, this is a first scam of the scale in a private sector bank. Could you explain to the people or viewers what does this scam freely mean, what are the contours of this, what is it that CBI is now claiming has happened? Let's give a little bit of a background to this entire episode. It concerns a series of transactions, financial transactions which are very complex in nature that took place between 2008 and 2013. Who were the players? The players were companies that were controlled and owned by Mrs. Chanda Coacher's husband Deepak Coacher and other relatives. It also relates to various companies that were controlled by or are a part of a group of companies, the Videocon group of companies which is headed by Mr. Vanu Gopal Dhooth. Now the story can be summarized in a few sentences. What was earlier perceived to be acts of alleged impropriety, at worst conflicts of interest or sweetheart deals according to the Central Bureau of Investigation that these are doesn't stop there. The CBI's first information report which was lodged on the 23rd of January alleges that Mrs. Coacher and others conspired, there was a criminal conspiracy to defraud and cheat the bank of 1,730 crore till March 2012. And the allegations that have been leveled against her are allegations under the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act. The Central Bureau of Investigation, the CBI had lodged what is called a preliminary inquiry on the 8th of December 2017. More than a year later, that is on the 23rd of January 2019, this first information report has been lodged or registered if you like and subsequently the next 24th of January reads have been conducted on various establishment and firms in Mumbai and in Aurangabad connected to both Mr. Deepak Coacher and his associates as well as Mr. Venugopal Dhoot and his firms. So essentially to cut a long story short, this whole episode has been around for a long time. It started with a whistleblower, Arvind Gupta, who sent letters, he is a shareholder of ICICI Bank. He sent letters to various people including the Prime Minister of India. But none of this really entered the public domain until the Indian Express published a detailed report on the 29th of March 2018. Subsequently, what happened was that Mrs. Coacher, who was the then Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of ICICI Bank, which by the way is the third largest bank in India after the two public sector banks, the State Bank of India and the Punjab National Bank, that Mrs. Coacher went on leave on the 18th of June and she formally resigned on the 4th of October 2018. She was looked on as a kind of a poster girl or a poster woman of Indian banking. Before we get into that, Paranjai, what was the reaction of ICICI itself? Because this is really first and foremost an issue which the board of ICICI had to react to. What did they do? Okay, the initial reaction soon after the Indian Express report came out was to give her a clean sheet saying that she has, according to the ICICI Board, not done anything wrong. I mean to summarize what the board said. But now what the CBI is alleging is that she was actually a part of a committee with sanctioned loans which went to the Videocon group and thereafter indirectly allegedly travelled to companies controlled by her husband. And which companies are these? First, in 2012 the Videocon group received loans worth approximately 40,000 crore rupees from a consortium of banks, 20 banks led by the State Bank of India. Out of this amount, a sum of 3,250 crores came from ICICI bank, less than 10% of the total amount. But significantly almost 86% of this amount that was loaned to the Videocon group that is 2,810 crore remains unpaid or what you would describe is become a non-performing asset. Now what happened is and this is the circumstantial evidence which is pretty pretty damning. Okay, the sanctioning committee which included Chandakochir approved a loan, various loans to the Videocon group, allegedly in contravention of the banks own rules and own regulations. The loans were dispersed the very next day what you found that the Videocon group gave another loan to New Power Renewables through a company called Supreme Energy as a result of which the New Power Renewables acquired its first power plant. This company was owned by Mr. Deepak Kochir. That's correct and his relatives but it was six months after Videocon had got the loans but the dispersal you know from the time the loans are sanctioned to the time the loans are dispersed that was the 7th of September 2008 all this happened yes. Now what is happening some very very curious developments have happened Mr. Dhooth and his firms and his associates transferred their ownership in a company called Supreme Energy that gave a loan of 64 crores to New Power which is controlled by Mr. Deepak Kochir to a trust headed by Mr. Deepak Kochir for a paltry sum of 9 lakh rupees. So obviously there's something happening which was more than I mean I would say very very murky doing very very unusual yes financially very unusual shall we say probably there's one other thing I need to say the CBI me prove the role played by other members of this committee this dispersing committee who are very very important people. Let me list their names I'm not making any accusation but this is all based on the central bureau of investigation India's premier police investigating agency their first information report who are these individuals their role in this entire fair may be probed one Mr. Sanjoy Chatterjee the chairman and co-chief executive officer of the Goldman Sachs group in India the huge big financial services conglomerate international conglomerate Ms. Zadeem. Rather unfortunate involvement in the one MDB scandal in Malaysia Goldman Sachs Asia was one of the key players shall we say that and their office officers are under and the New York Times has brought out more exposes about the years starting with that they are currently under criminal charges. Okay so besides Mr. Sanjoy Chatterjee who's chairman and co-CEO of Goldman Sachs group in India there's Ms. Zareen Daruwala he's she's the chief executive officer of Standard Chartered Bank in India again a large international bank then there are group companies Mr. Sandeep Bakshi who's the current CEO of ICICI Bank Mr. NS Kannan who's the CEO of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance and we have two persons who are connected with the Tata Group we have Mr. Rajiv Sabarwal who's the CEO of Tata Capital and another director of ICICI Bank Mr. Homi or Homi Khusrokhan who's an advisor to the Tata Group he's also was part of this committee and importantly the gentleman who in a sense groomed Mrs. Chandakochir to succeed him the former chairman of the ICICI Bank that's Mr. KV Kamath who happens to be the president of this international bank called the New Development Bank which in its earlier avatar was known as the BRICS Development Bank BRICS is the acronym for Brazil Russia India China South Africa loosely called the BRICS Bank that's correct its official name is the New Development Bank so only time will tell what happens how deep that probe would be and I need to mention one other point a former judge a retired judge of the Supreme Court Justice B and Sri Krishna he had been asked by the board of ICICI to also submit a report and look into these allegations and that report is yet to come that is independent of the CBI's probe obviously when we're dealing with the bank we are not dealing with private shareholders money we are dealing with depositors money that is the primary issue that the bank does not by itself have a huge fund the bank really gets money from its depositors which it then loans to others and the income the bank derives is out of the interest it charges those who it lends so the money doesn't come back it's really what the depositors are going to either take a hit or the risk is to the bank itself which we have seen also in the number of other banks now therefore what is the responsibility of the regulators who are supposed to look after the banks who are the regulators what are the responsibilities and what did they do now here one has to probe deeper to find out why what was perceived to be conflicts of interest alleged acts of impropriety or sweetheart deals became a criminal conspiracy to cheat the bank and what was the role paid by the country's central bank that is the Reserve Bank of India what was the role that needs to be paid by the regulator of the financial markets that is the SEBI or the Securities and Exchange Board of India and above them all is the Ministry of Finance North Block in Delhi as you rightly pointed out it is a private bank it's the third largest bank in India it's the biggest private bank but its ownership may be private and and including foreign companies but it has shareholders in India who are members of the public and above all it gets this money from depositors in this country I mean that's what banks do so despite the ownership being private clearly there is a very deep public interest involved when if these banks are accused of or allegations serious allegations are level of the funds that at the end of the day belong to the public belong to the depositors are not being utilized in a proper manner and that adequate due diligence is not being done and worse criminal conspiracies to favor relatives spouses and so on and so forth. In fact the all India bank officers have charged that why is it that when you are willing to take immediate action against senior officials of the public sector banks why were you so soft on essentially private sector banks which also are public they are not they are really public institutions of a certain kind therefore why did you treat them differentially and the whole question therefore of the regulatory structure in this country particularly because of financial structure underpins a large part of the economy and I think what private issue this entire episode highlights is that corruption or sweetheart deals or acts of impropriety or conflicts of interest or downright allegations of criminal conspiracy which violate the Indian penal code the prevention of corruption act all these allegations they're not a prerogative of the public sector or government owned financial institutions very much happening in private institution or privately owned and privately controlled institutions. As you know the Goldman Sachs case which we're discussing in Malaysia cases have been filed both in Singapore in Malaysia and also the United States because Goldman Sachs again has the responsibility to go beyond its sort of the managing trust managing group of partners so to say because they didn't get everywhere everybody else's money as well so this are important issues which not only playing India but also other countries you know what what we have to probe and what we have to sort of look at the whistleblower Mr. Arvind Gupta told A&I that he did what he did as a shareholder and therefore he wanted what was happening to be known secondly he has said that he would like the government to probe deeper into the foreign funding of Indian companies I presume also ICICI bank and he has further claimed that this may just be the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Now as I mentioned earlier Mr. Gupta had also written to the prime minister we'd have to wait and watch and see how deep the CBI probe would go and let's see I mean I can't second guess or double guess and what will happen from here. Thank you very much very much for being with us exploring an issue which is not so easily understood because finance as you know and these large numbers generally blows people's minds this is all the time we have for news click today do keep watching news click will come with this and other such issues before you.