The Bombay high court on Thursday dismissed former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar’s plea to access and deal with 6. 9 lakh ICICI Bank shares she got under a stock option plan at the time of her early retirement in 2018.
Stating that she had come with “unclean hands”, the HC upheld ICICI Bank’s decision to revoke its acceptance of her October 3, 2018 request for early retirement, pending an enquiry.
Justice Riyaz Chagla found no merit in Kochhar’s contention that the bank cannot revoke acceptance of early retirement once the employer-employee relationship ends. Shares of ICICI Bank have tripled since her resignation, and at current prices, the 6. 9 lakh shares are worth Rs 63 crore.
Allowing the bank’s plea, the HC restrained Kochhar from dealing—from October 4, 2018 to January 30, 2019, with any of the 6. 90 lakh shares she claimed were allotted to her. If used, she must disclose on affidavit in six weeks if she sold or dealt with such shares, the HC directed.
The court pronounced its verdict on her interim plea on Thursday in her suit filed this year. The narrow issue involved in these proceedings was whether ICICI Bank, having accepted on October 4, 2018, her October 3, 2018 request for early retirement, could subsequently, on January 30, 2019, treat her services with ICICI Bank as “termination for cause” with effect from the date of the acceptance.
Her plea before the HC was for “reinstatement of her Employee Stock Options (ESOPs) under the Employee Stock Option Scheme (ESOS).
ICICI Bank filed an interim application in its suit of 2020 for a “clawback of bonuses and revocation of retirement benefits, including vested and unvested ESOPs. The clawback was because the bank terminated Kochhar’s services with effect from October 4, 2018, following Justice BN Srikrishna’s January 27, 2019 report holding that she “committed ‘serious violations of the Code of Conduct for extended periods. ”
The HC order said it appears from Justice Srikrishna’s report that “there is non-disclosure by Kochhar of certain directorships of her husband, Deepak Kochhar in Companies where Videocon Group was either a substantial shareholder or which were part of the Videocon group. ”
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