Bombay High Court sends Chanda Kochhar’s swimsuit over ICICI Bank dues to civil division

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday allowed a plea filed by ICICI Bank and directed its former CEO Chanda Kochhar to strategy the suitable judicial discussion board of the HC by holding that the character of the swimsuit filed by her in connection together with her entitlements and advantages was not a industrial dispute.

In its plea, ICICI Bank argued that the swimsuit needs to be handled as civil swimsuit because it was a matter between an worker and an employer.

The HC directed its registry to switch the stated swimsuit from the court docket’s industrial division which is ruled by the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 to its common civil division which is ruled by the Civil Procedure Code (CPC). The excessive court docket, which is a constitution court docket, has unique jurisdiction (the court docket could be approached via fits as court docket of first occasion) primarily based on the territory and the worth concerned. After the 2015 Act was carried out, a industrial division was added on the HC, which governs the fits filed underneath the stated regulation.

A single-judge bench of Justice N J Jamadar handed an order in Kochhar’s swimsuit filed this January, looking for particular efficiency commitments and contractual obligations promised to her after her early retirement in October 2018.

Kochhar had claimed that ICICI Bank was required to pay her entitlements almost over Rs 1,000 crore as per present market worth. She submitted that the financial institution reneged on its contractual commitments and can’t terminate an individual who had already retired.

Subsequently, the financial institution had filed an intervention software in Kocchar’s swimsuit stating that underneath the 2015 Act, the industrial court docket can solely hear fits and purposes referring to “commercial dispute” of particular worth, which was not the case in Kochhar’s plea and subsequently it needs to be transferred to common civil division of the HC.

Senior advocate Darius Khambata representing ICICI Bank, argued that Kochhar had wrongly filed the swimsuit underneath the 2015 Act. “The suit is filed in relation to a dispute, which does not fall un-der the definition of a ‘commercial dispute’… the commercial division of this court has no juris-diction to entertain, try and/or dispose of the present suit,” ICICI Bank’s plea had stated.

However, Kochhar, in her reply, acknowledged that the financial institution’s software must be dismissed on the threshold because it was not maintainable and was misconceived. She added that the applying had been belatedly filed solely to delay listening to on her interim pleas.

In December 2020, the Supreme Court had declined to intervene with a Bombay High Court order upholding the January 2019 determination of ICICI Bank to terminate Kochhar’s providers as its manag-ing director and CEO. She had earlier moved the excessive court docket, contending that the termination was communicated months after ICICI Bank permitted her voluntary resignation in October 2018. Termination from service, she stated, was subsequently “illegal, untenable and unsustainable in law”.

In January 2019, the board of ICICI Bank, after contemplating an investigation performed by retired Supreme Court decide BN Srikrishna, sacked Kochhar and determined to claw again all bonuses given to her since 2009 when she took cost of the highest put up.