Banks had been pressing for immunity from arbitrary arrest or action by investigating agencies against their top executives for taking commercial decisions such as grant of loans, but there has been little headway on this demand so far.
Terming the arrest of ICICI Bank s former managing director and chief executive officer (MD&CEO) Chandar Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar as an abuse of power by the central bureau of investigation (CBI), the Bombay high court (HC) says the arrest was without application of mind and due regard to the law .
"IBC cannot be held to be operating in a retroactive manner in order to hold it violative of the constitution," it said. "Thus, we hold that the statute does not suffer from the vices of manifest arbitrariness."
Chanda Kochhar was MD and CEO of ICICI Bank between May 2009 and January 2019 in which capacity she was entrusted with the Bank s funds, the CBI told court.