Sudhanshu Dhar Mishra is facing the heat for allegedly 'leaking' sensitive information regarding the corruption case involving former ICICI Bank chief Chanda Kochhar.
New Delhi: After two former bosses of India’s premier probe agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Alok Verma and Rakesh Asthana, were put under the scanner on charges of corruption and dereliction of duty, a superintendent-level officer and others are now suspected to have leaked probe details.
The role of Sudhanshu Dhar Mishra, superintendent of police of the banking and securities fraud cell of the CBI, has now been called into question. He has now been transferred to the CBI’s economic offences branch in Ranchi, Jharkhand. Dhar Mishra had signed the FIR in the corruption case against former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar, her husband Deepak and Videocon group MD Venugopal Dhoot on January 22.
According to senior officials, the agency carried out searches at multiple locations on January 24 in connection with the case after the charge of the probe was given to Mohit Gupta. It was suspected that there was a possibility of information about the planned searches being leaked.
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Justifying the transfer, the CBI pinned the blame on Dhar Mishra for keeping the preliminary inquiry pending without any reason.
“A discreet inquiry was conducted and role of Sudhanshu Dhar Mishra was strongly suspected. Hence, he has been transferred pending a detailed inquiry, considering that the matter is serious,” a senior officer said.
Officials said that after a review some time ago, the preliminary inquiry was sped up and was converted into a regular case. Immediately after the registration of the case, the searches were proposed.
On January 24, the CBI booked former ICICI Bank chief Kochhar, her businessman husband Deepak and Videocon MD Dhoot in a case of alleged irregularities in the sanctioning of loans by the bank.
Kochhar had quit the ICICI Bank on October 4 last year in the wake of allegations that she had favoured Videocon in the lending processes because the consumer electronics company's founders had invested in a company of her husband Deepak.
The CBI has filed cases against the three along with some others after conducting raids at four premises in Maharashtra, the investigating agency said.
The preliminary inquiry apparently showed that from June 2009 to October 2011, the ICICI Bank had allegedly sanctioned six high-value loans to various Videocon Group companies, according to CBI sources.
Kochhar had taken over the post of managing director of the ICICI Bank on May 1, 2009.
The companies M/S Nupower Renewables Limited (NRL) and M/S Supreme Energy Private Limited (SEPL) have also been named in the case registered by the CBI.
It is alleged that SEPL was initially incorporated by Dhoot and his associate Vasant Kakade and the ownership of the company was later transferred to Deepak Kochhar by selling the shares of the company to Pinnacle Energy Trust (PET) which was owned by Deepak.
It is also alleged that Dhoot had invested a large amount of funds in the Deepak Kochhar-owned Nupower months after the Videocon Group received Rs 3,250 crore as loan from the ICICI Bank in 2012.
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