Chanda Kochhar

ICICI-Videocon case: CBI officer probing case under lens for 'info leak'

NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Sunday claimed that Superintendent of Police Sudhanshu Dhar Mishra, who was probing the ICICI Bank fraud involving Chanda Kochhar and registered an FIR in the case on January 22, is being probed along with “others” for suspected leakage of information related to raids.The officer was shifted out of Bank Securities and Fraud Cell (BS&FC) Delhi unit, which has been probing the Chanda Kochhar preliminary enquiry (PE) since December 2017, a day after the registration of FIR after a “discreet inquiry”.Interestingly, the day the FIR was registered againston January 22, the concerned joint director — Praveen Sinha of BS&FC — was also replaced with a new officer — V Murugesan. Sinha himself had been made the supervisory officer of this unit on January 11, a day after Nageswara Rao took over as interim CBI director once again.CBI raids were conducted on January 24 under the supervision of new SP Mohit Gupta, who replaced Mishra and Murugesan.“The ICICI Bank fraud is one of the most important cases in CBI. A review was done during which we found that there was no progress in the investigation and it was unnecessarily kept pending,” said a CBI official.“Also, after the FIR was registered on January 22, it was suspected that there was a possibility of information about the planned searches being leaked. A discreet inquiry was conducted and role of SP Sudhanshu Dhar Mishra was strongly suspected due to which he was transferred to Ranchi economic offences branch pending the inquiry,” added the officer.Mishra, who is not a CBI cadre officer, is an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer. He is being probed along with “others” as part of CBI inquiry over the slow pace of ICICI probe and suspected leak of information on raids.In big cases like the one against Chanda Kochhar, a decision to register an FIR is taken at various levels including the SP, DIG, joint director, additional director with the director having the final say.CBI, however, couldn’t explain if Mishra was not taking any action during the preliminary inquiry, why the senior officers didn’t act for almost 13 months considering the loan amount involved was Rs 1,875 crore.Interestingly, CBI also refused to give an official statement on the issue and Rao, who has been on a transfer spree, remained incommunicado.Rao has transferred over 25 SPs/additional SPs, who usually probe most of the cases in the agency, in the past one week, which CBI claims is part of “cleansing” the agency.A day after the raids, finance minister Arun Jaitley took to social media and questioned actions by the CBI in the case.“There is a fundamental difference between investigative adventurism and professional investigation. Investigative adventurism involves casting the net too wide including people with no 'mens rea' or even having a common intention to commit an offence, relying on presumptions and surmises with no legally admissible evidence. Adventurism leads to media leaks, ruins reputations and eventually invites strictures and not convictions. In the process, the targets are ruined because of harassment, loss of reputation and financial costs. It costs people their career," Jaitley, who is undergoing treatment in the US, wrote.