Are CEO of Banks Above Law

PADHIYE ZAROOOR.......(Collected from Facebook)
https://www.facebook.com/100001213748882/posts/2286913504692419/

Writer Ved Mathur is Regd GM of PNB.......

Chanda Kochhar, Padma Bhushan awardee and ICICI Bank Managing Director ( fb dismissed), needs to be sent to a psychiatrist before being sentenced to jail. She has been receiving crores of rupees as salary and bonus. In addition her expenses ranging from beauty salon raising her dogs, for trips abroad to the maintenance of her Bungalow, all are borne by the bank. All types of expenses, legitimate to illegitimate were all booked in the bank’s expense account. Furthermore she also gets gifts worth crores of rupees from the businessmen, still with the help of her husband not only she took bribe from the Videocon Trust, she also sold one of the ICICI Bank buildings to Videocon Group at a peanuts price. Thus she literally ‘sold the bank’.

If one’s hunger for money is not satisfied with wages, allowances, bonuses and perks running into crores of rupees, one should be sent to the psychologist for mental treatment before being sent to jail.
I wonder, what type of banking system we have. If a branch manager of a rural bank branch is caught taking bribe of Rs. 5000, not only he is immediately sent to jail but his house is raided at once and effort to trace more cash, property, etc. are made at electronic speed. But Chanda Kochhar, despite loot of billions coming to the light, is given adequate time in which she could easily hide the looted money, destroy the evidences, arrange her anticipatory bail through costliest solicitors like Harish Salve and continue lavish life style.
 
Chanda ji looted tens of thousand crores of rupees but due to her links with influential people, no body could touch her so far. This is sheer her confidence that  she accepted bribe money through a Trust and the whole issue for this transaction came to light. This bribe can easily be proved in court of law. But her lawyer taking a fee of Rs 35 lakh per day, will argue in the court that Chanda Kochhar had no knowledge about her husband’s transactions with Videocon Group. It is also possible that after ten or twenty years of court dates, she might get exonerated.
In our country, on one hand, hardworking bank employees are struggling for increase of nominal amount in their already lower wages through five yearly wage agreements. On the other hand, people like Chanda Kochhar loot billions. An important question here is also that if a MD or CEO, of a bank takes A bribe of 50-100 crores taken by a Bank MD or CEO means somewhere he or she has bowed the seeds of a bank NPA by giving ‘non-refundable’ loan of 25 to 50 thousand crores to unscrupulous industrialists. People like Chanda Kochhar, after accepting bribe, did not just release loans from their own banks, but also got loans worth crores disbursed through other banks in the name of consortium arrangement. (Due to her strong public relations team, Chanda Kochhar had enjoyed a highly influential and glamorous image that the MDs of other banks used to get excited on her phone call.) On one hand, Chanda ji opened the bank's chests for the large dishonest industrialists and on other hand, she used goons of Recovery Agencies to recover loans forcibly from small and poor defaulters. This felony was stopped after court intervention.

Irony is that when the bank employees seek an increase in their wages, it is said that due to rising NPA / sinking loans, the bank is not in a position to pay increased salaries, but no intensive analysis for the actual reasons behind for those NPAs is done. Nor any serious efforts is made for sending wilful defaulters to the jail.

Had Chanda Kochhar’s house was raided promptly on first news coming to light and timely steps were taken to seise the illegally earned money, perhaps with only this fetch it was easily possible to grant respectable increase in employees wages. What Chanda Kochhar has earned in just one Videocon case, proves that she has earned so much in her career that she is in a position to give a tough fight to the most corrupt politicians.

Now we have to see whether Chanda Kochhar goes to jail or proves to be taller than long hands of justice.