Whistle-blower levels new allegations

Whistle-blower Arvind Gupta, who exposed the alleged Videocon loan fraud, has levelled fresh allegations of quid pro quo on ICICI Bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar in a second letter addressed to PM Narendra Modi. Gupta has claimed that ICICI Bank had favoured Ruia brothers of Essar group for 'roundtripping' investments into Chanda Kochhar's husband Deepak Kochhar's NuPower Renewables - a firm which is at the centre of current Videocon loan probe.

"ICICI has been instrumental in funding Essar Group's global ventures particularly taking over of Essar Oil in United Kingdom, Essar Steel Minnesota (USA) and Algoma Steel (Canada). In course of time, these funds also became non-performing asset (NPA) and they had to face a lot of litigations. A part of these funds did come back, but to my assessment, a substantial amount of fund still remains NPA," Gupta told ANI.

"These financers in India didn't insist to ensure that the bankers get the full money that they owe to the banks. Nor did the ICICI bank initiated any action and asked them to first pay

off our money and then get away. All these transactions do need to be investigated. It needs to be seen how these funds were transferred," he added. Adding to this he said that there is something unusual and fishy in this whole case as to how investments go into a company which is running into losses. "ICICI bank looks like a one-person show. Out of the nine committees they have, Chanda Kochhar is present on six of them. Their work culture needs to be examined," he added.