The Bombay High Court has declared that the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) arrest of Chanda Kochhar, the former Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ICICI Bank, and her husband Deepak Kochhar in connection with a loan fraud case was “without application of mind and due regard to the law” and amounted to a “abuse of power”.
On February 6, a division bench consisting of Justices Anuja Prabhudessai and N R Borkar declared the Kochhars’ arrest to be unlawful and upheld an interim bail order that had been granted to them in January 2023 by a different bench.

The court stated in the order made public on Monday that the CBI had failed to provide evidence of events or supporting documentation that would have allowed the arrest to be made. It said that if there are no such circumstances, the arrest is unlawful.

“Such routine arrest without application of mind and due regard to the law amounts to an abuse of power,” the judge ruled.

The court further ruled that the accused had a right to silence during questioning and rejected the probe agency’s argument that the arrest was made because the Kochhars were not cooperating with the investigation.

The CBI arrested the couple on December 23, 2022, in the Videocon-ICICI Bank loan case.

They immediately moved the high court challenging the arrest and sought for the same to be declared illegal, and by way of interim order, sought to be released on bail.

On January 9, 2023, the court, in an interim order, granted the Kochhars bail, noting that the CBI had made the arrest casually and mechanically and without application of mind.

The bench further said that the first information report (FIR) against the Kochhars was registered in 2019, and they were summoned for questioning only in 2022.

From June 2022, the Kochhars have been appearing before the CBI as and when notices under section 41A were issued to them, the bench said.