In the case over alleged quid pro quo transactions involving ICICI Bank and the Videocon Group, the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) has ordered a probe into NuPower Renewables and five other companies.
The government has ordered SFIO investigation in companies such as Supreme Energy, Videocon Industries, Pacific Capital Services, NuPower Wind Farms and Echanda Urja, Union Minister
PP Choudhary told CNBC-TV18 on Friday.
The ministry had also ordered inspection of books and papers with regards to Jet Airways, Choudhary said.
ICICI chief executive Chanda Kochhar’s husband Deepak Kochhar owns Nu-Power Renewables. NuPower Renewables was originally founded as a 50-50 JV between Videocon Group's Venugopal Dhoot family and Kochhar and Advani families (Chanda Kochhar's brother, Mahesh Advani). Around that time Chanda Kochhar was the CFO and joint MD at ICICI Bank.
Supreme Energy is the holding company for NuPower Renewables while Echanda Urja Private and NuPower Wind Farms are units of NuPower. Pacific Capital Services was involved in dealings related to the transfer of shareholdings in NuPower Renewables.
Deepak Kochhar, a keen squash player, was a financial services entrepreneur before he founded NuPower in late 2008.
The company has nearly 700 megawatt (MW) of renewable energy assets operating and in pipeline located across Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh & Madhya Pradesh.
According to a report by CARE, NuPower “is engaged in generation of power through wind with an aggregate operational capacity of 134.75MW located in Tamil Nadu, 10.2MW in Karnataka and 4.2MW in Rajasthan. Further, the firm commissioned additional capacity of 28.70MW (2.05 MW yet to be commissioned) in October 2015 totaling 177.85MW”.
