How did Venugopal Dhoot of Videocon get bail in the ICICI money laundering case?

A Special Court on 11 March has decided to grant bail to Mr. Venugopal Dhoot of the Videocon Group who had been implicated in the money laundering case of ICICI Bank. It was alleged that promoter Venugopal Dhoot had colluded with the CEO of ICICI Bank and her husband to route money through Videocon to private transactions. He has been given bail on a cash bond of Rs.5 lakh furnished to the special court.

The bail application put up by the legal counsel of Dhoot has appealed to the court to consider the age and deteriorating health of Mr. Dhoot. Mr. Dhoot is above 70 years of age. Currently, Dhoot is no longer the chairman or managing director of Videocon Industries as the control of the company and all its documents and record are with the Resolution Professionals appointed IBC Code by the National Company Law Tribunal or NCLT.

Dhoot’s counsel also argued that Mr. Dhoot and his business group were merely victims of the circumstances and consequently no criminality or criminal motive could be attributed to the turn of events. The counsel also made a point that several other accused in the case, including Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar had also been granted bail. Hence, there was no reason for not granting bail to Mr. Dhoot.

The ED had relied upon a first information report or FIR registered by the CBI in the year 2019. The entire money laundering case pertains to causing loss to ICICI Bank by sanctioning loans to Videocon Group in contravention of the policies of ICICI Bank. The problem arose when these loans turned into NPAs. The CBI had accused the Videocon promoter and Chanda Kochhar of making wrongful gains at the cost of the bank.