September 6th 2024.
On Friday, the Supreme Court will convene to discuss a petition filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) concerning the Bombay High Court's decision to grant bail to former ICICI Bank chief, Chanda Kochhar, in the Videocon loan fraud case. Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Sanjay Kumar will preside over the hearing of the CBI's special leave petition.
This is not the first time the CBI has challenged the Bombay High Court's ruling. In February of this year, the top court had dismissed the investigative agency's plea against the January 2023 decision to grant interim bail to Kochhar. However, they had given the CBI the option to file a fresh appeal if they were unsatisfied with the final decision of the High Court.
In a ruling made on February 6th, the Division Bench of Justices Anuja Prabhudessai and Nitin R. Borkar of the Bombay High Court upheld the previous decision to grant interim bail to the Kochhar couple. The court noted that the CBI's arrest of Kochhar on December 23, 2022, was not justified as it was based on the same evidence that was already known to the Investigating Officer. The court further stated that such arrests, made without proper consideration of the law, amounted to an abuse of power.
Chanda Kochhar and her husband, Deepak Kochhar, have been accused of receiving illegal kickbacks during her tenure as the ICICI Bank chief in exchange for providing loans to the Videocon group. The CBI, however, failed to provide any solid evidence to support their decision to arrest Kochhar in the first place. As a result, the High Court found their actions to be unjustified and granted Kochhar interim bail.
The CBI will now have the opportunity to present their case and provide new evidence to support their claim against the Kochhars. The Supreme Court will carefully consider all the facts and make a final decision on whether the Bombay High Court's ruling should be upheld or overturned.
[This article has been trending online recently and has been generated with AI. Your feed is customized.]
[Generative AI is experimental.]
