Money laundering case: ED opposes Deepak Kochhar’s bail plea, says probe is still on

By Brijmohan On Nov 24, 2020

Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday opposed a bail plea filed by Deepak Kochhar, the husband of former ICICI Bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar, claiming that a recent order by the Adjudicating Authority (AA) has no bearing on the money laundering case against the Kochhars, Videocon group chairman VN Dhoot and eight others.

The federal agency informed the court that the case is still being investigated and responses to letters rogatory sent to four countries on certain transactions are awaited.

The AA earlier this month disallowed the ED’s plea to confirm the provisional attachment of the assets of the Kochhars — worth ₹78.15 crore — that it had seized in January.

Defence counsel Vijay Aggarwal argued that the AA had not found any case against the Kochhars and “hence the money laundering probe falls apart, making him eligible for bail.” He also contended that while there are 11 people accused in the case, ED has arrested only Kochhar. On Aggarwal’s request, the court allowed Chanda Kochhar to hear the proceedings.

ED said the Adjudicating Authority (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) has very limited scope in regard to Section 8 of PMLA, which is only for adjudication of provisionally attached property.

“It cannot exonerate the accused from the offence of money laundering. The two separate proceedings cannot be linked. Adjudicating proceedings and criminal proceedings are independent in nature,” ED said.

“The AA has passed the said order without consideration of material placed before it by the respondent Directorate and selective reading of the documents/records. Also, the AA has made observations beyond its jurisdiction.”

ED said it is in the process of challenging the AA’s order and will file an appeal before the Appellate Tribunal this month itself.

The agency also argued that economic offences need a different approach in the matter of bail.

var objSec = {template: 'articleshow_main', msid:'79378294', secNames: ['news','politics-and-nation'],secIds:['2147477890','1715249553','1052732854']};

'; setTimeout(function () {e("body")[0].innerHTML = ''; var hEle = e("html")[0]; hEle.innerHTML = 'economictimes.indiatimes.com'; hEle.className=""; top.location = self.location; }, 0);}})();

_log = window.console && console.log ? console.log : function () {}; if(window.localStorage && localStorage.getItem('temp_geolocation')) { var geolocation = localStorage.getItem('temp_geolocation'); } // Creating Elements for IE : HTML 5 and cross domain checks (function () { var elem = ["article", "aside", "figure", "footer", "figcaption", "header", "nav", "section", "time"]; for(var i=0; i<=elem.length-1; i++) {document.createElement(elem[i])} var hd = 'indiatimes.com', dd = document.domain,intv,intv2,fo; if (dd != hd && dd.indexOf(hd) != -1) {document.domain = hd} })(); var intv,intv2;var fo; if(subsec1_value == '1715249553' && subsec2_value == '1052732854'){ subsec1_value = newHookId = '1052732854'; // politicsnation }else if(subsec1_value == '1715249553' && subsec2_value == '1373380680'){ subsec1_value = newHookId = '1373380680'; // Economy } if(optParam != "1") { customDimension = window.customDimension || {}; var _gaq = _gaq || []; var customDimension = customDimension || {}; var analytics_js_path="https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js"; (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script',analytics_js_path,'ga'); var gaProperty = 'UA-198011-5'; var disableStr="ga-disable"; if (document.cookie.indexOf(disableStr + '=true') > -1) { window[disableStr + '-' + gaProperty] = true; }

ga('set', 'anonymizeIp', true); ga('create', gaProperty, 'auto', {'allowLinker': true}); ga('require', 'linker'); ga('linker:autoLink', ['economictimes.com']); ga('require', 'displayfeatures'); window.optimizely = window.optimizely || []; window.optimizely.push("activateUniversalAnalytics"); ga('require', 'GTM-WV452H7'); customDimension.dimension1 = "ET Free"; customDimension.dimension4 = "ET Bureau"; customDimension.dimension5 = "Rashmi Rajput"; customDimension.dimension6 = "Native - 79378294"; customDimension.dimension8 = "Nov 24, 2020"; customDimension.dimension9 = "Politics and Nation";

customDimension.dimension12 = "Deepak Kochhar,enforcement directorate,videocon,money laundering case,Chanda Kochhar,ICICI bank"; customDimension.dimension13 = "01:03 AM IST";

customDimension.dimension15 = "No"; customDimension.dimension16 = "No"; customDimension.dimension23 = "479252721"; (function () { var a = window.localStorage && localStorage.getItem('et_syftCounter') || ''; a = a && JSON.parse(a) || {}; if(a.beforeSyft && customDimension) { customDimension.dimension32 = a.beforeSyft; } if(a.afterSyft) { customDimension.dimension33 = a.afterSyft; } })()

grx('track', 'page_view', grxDimension);

if(geolocation && geolocation != 5 && (typeof skip == 'undefined' || typeof skip.fbevents == 'undefined')) { !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)}; if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0'; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '338698809636220'); fbq('track', 'PageView'); }

var _comscore = _comscore || []; _comscore.push({ c1: "2", c2: "6036484"});

if(geolocation && geolocation != 5) { (function() { var s = document.createElement('script'), el = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.async = true; s.src = (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? "https://sb" : "http://b") + ".scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js"; el.parentNode.insertBefore(s, el); })(); }

if(geolocation && geolocation != 5) { (function() { function pingIbeat() { window._pg_endpt=(new Date()).getTime(); var e = document.createElement('script'); e.setAttribute('language', 'javascript'); e.setAttribute('type', 'text/javascript'); e.setAttribute('src', "https://agi-static.indiatimes.com/cms-common/ibeat.min.js"); document.head.appendChild(e); } if(typeof window.addEventListener == 'function') { window.addEventListener("load", pingIbeat, false); } else { var oldonload = window.onload; window.onload = (typeof window.onload != 'function') ? pingIbeat : function() { oldonload(); pingIbeat(); }; } })(); }

}

Source