MUMBAI: ICICI Bank has launched a second external probe to examine allegations of irregularities in 31 loan accounts raised by a third whistleblower complaint, said two people familiar with the matter.The bank has hired white-collar crime specialist law firm Panag and Babu to investigate the latest matter, said one of the people cited above. The firm will look into allegations that ICICI Bank inflated profits by at least $1.3 billion over eight years by delaying provisioning for 31 nonperforming asset (NPA) accounts.This will be independent of the probe being conducted by retired Supreme Court judge BN Srikrishna, said the people cited above.An ICICI Bank spokesperson confirmed the development. “An independent law firm has been appointed by the audit committee to assist it,” the spokesperson said. Panag and Babu didn’t respond to queries.“In the past, the ICICI Bank board had to be nudged to initiate any enquiry. Now it’s clear they want to steer themselves out of any controversy, which is why they have initiated another probe,” said one of the persons familiar with the matter.“I believe the scope of investigation is limited to allegations levelled in the third whistleblower complaint.”Another person said that the bank had already submitted an interim report to the Reserve Bank of India and the appointment of an external agency was to conduct an exhaustive probe.“The bank has already submitted an internal investigation report to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which says that all these accounts were provided for and any delay in deciding on impaired assets was purely a business decision,” said the person. “I don’t think these accounts were even part of any asset classification divergence the bank may have reported in the past.”The fresh external probe comes after the bank constituted a committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge BN Srikrishna to investigate conflict-of-interest accusations against chief executive Chanda Kochhar , who has gone on leave pending its findings.While no public announcement has been made, the probe by Srikrishna will look in to charges that some of the loans to Videocon and Essar Groups were granted as a quid pro quo for business dealings between Kochhar’s husband and these groups.Accusations against Kochhar were first made in 2016, saying that she failed to disclose business relationships that her husband Deepak Kochhar had with entities to which ICICI Bank sanctioned loans. The ICICI Board had denied wrongdoing and defended her.In a June 22 statement, ICICI Bank had revealed that in March it had received a complaint alleging the irregularities in the conduct of 31borrower accounts, resulting in incorrect asset classification and inflation of profits.The bank said it had treated these accusations as a whistleblower complaint and an enquiry was instituted as per policy under the supervision of the audit committee of the board, without involvement of senior management other than internal auditors. The report, which was also submitted to the RBI, showed no irregularity and all accounts had been provided for.After that, further probes were commissioned over the alleged scepticism of investors and corporate governance experts. The board also said that ICICI Bank under Kochhar had been among the members of a consortium of over 20 lenders.As the controversy refused to die down, the board named Sandeep Bakhshi, a veteran banker and chief of the ICICI group’s life insurance company, as chief executive officer to run the bank in Kochhar’s absence. NS Kannan was transferred to the life insurance arm as CEO.Law firm Luthra and Luthra and forensic audit company Control Risk Group are assisting Srikrishna in the probe.