[ICICI Bank-Videocon] Bombay High Court defers PMLA Court hearing in Deepak Kochhar case by 2 weeks

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday deferred hearing of the proceedings initiated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against Deepak Kochhar, husband of former Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Bank Chanda Kochhar, in the ICICI Bank-Videocon alleged money-laundering case..The case being investigated by the ED, relates to the siphoning off of six high value loans from ICICI Bank to various companies of Videocon Industries to the tune of ₹300 crores, in contravention of the rules and policies of the sanctioning committee of the bank.In the plea, Kochhar has assailed an order of the Special Judge issuing notice to him and other accused based on the ED's complaint. He has assailed all consequential proceedings arising from the same..Senior Advocate Vikram Chaudhari appearing for Kochhar stated that the adjudicating authority under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) had held in its order of 2020 that the properties alleged to be 'proceeds of crime' in the prosecution complaint did not amount to proceeds of crime and thus were not involved in money laundering.However, the ED suppressed this fact before the Special Court and got an order in their favour. In light of this, he stated that the Special Court order ought to be quashed.In the interim, he prayed that prosecution should not continue in the proceedings. "If the PMLA Appellate Tribunal order is awaited, then let us all wait for it," Chaudhari said. .Additional Solicitor General SV Raju made two-fold submissions to oppose the interim prayer. He argued that the order of the Adjudicating Authority came three days after the prosecution complaint was filed before the PMLA Court and hence, it could not have been considered. He pointed out that the Special Court was supposed to consider the complaint while issuing process.He added that there had been a delay by Kochhar in filing the present application, as the order of the PMLA court taking cognisance was of January 2021, whereas the plea was filed in August 2021 and moved for hearing in September 2021. .After hearing the preliminary submissions of the counsel, Justice Revati Mohite Dere opined that since the PMLA Appellate Tribunal is seized of the appeal challenging the adjudicating authority order, it would not be appropriate (for the High Court) to consider the authority's order at this stage.However, Chaudhari insisted that the Court refer to certain judgments that could aid in his case. As those judgments had not been filed before the Court today, Justice Dere granted him a week's time to file his compilation. While doing so, she extended the interim order of November 30, 2021 which had deferred the trial court proceedings till January 12, 2022. As the ASG tried to oppose any extension, Justice Dere remarked, "Heavens will not fall within 2 weeks". The order deferring the proceedings technically stands extended by a week.