A top official of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had signed off on a decision to recommend Asheesh Pandey as the next chief executive of Indian Bank, even as the central bank reportedly raised concerns against his candidature.
RBI deputy governor Rajeshwar Rao was among the signatories to the proposal of recommending Pandey for the post, as per a document accessed by Mint under a Right to Information (RTI) query. Pandey is currently an executive director at state-owned Bank of Maharashtra, and was so when he had appeared for the job interview in April 2024.
While Rao was part of the committee that recommended Pandey for the top job at Indian Bank, a report in the Economic Times on 13 July said that RBI had also written to the government pointing out reservations about his candidature at banks. The Financial Services Institutions Bureau – a body which picks names for top roles at banks – has representation from the RBI, and it was apprised of the RBI’s letter before the selection, the report said.
However, a person aware of the proceedings of the FSIB interview said that its members were unaware of RBI’s letter to the finance ministry.
The central bank’s displeasure with Pandey arose from an ‘exit meeting’ at BoM the previous year. An exit meeting is where RBI officials discuss with bank management what their annual inspection has found out.
A former banker who has attended such exit meetings said that at these annual meetings, the management is represented by the bank’s chief executive, executive directors and some general managers. As per the media report, RBI wasn’t pleased with Pandey’s “behaviour and conduct” during that meeting, prompting its letter to the ministry.
To be sure, Pandey did not get the role and the government eventually appointed Binod Kumar as the chief executive of Indian Bank. A mechanical engineer and a management post graduate in finance and marketing, Pandey started his career at erstwhile Corporation Bank and has an experience of over 27 years in the banking industry.
On 24 April 2024, members of the FSIB met to recommend names for certain vacancies in public sector banks, as per minutes of the meeting sent to the finance ministry two days later. Mint has reviewed a copy of the minutes, albeit one that was heavily redacted citing exemptions under the RTI Act.
As per the document, the meeting was chaired by Bhanu Pratap Sharma, former secretary, Department of Personnel & Training. Members present in the meeting included Vivek Joshi, then the financial services secretary; Ali Raza Rizvi, then secretary, Department of Public Enterprises; M Rajeshwar Rao, deputy governor, RBI; Animesh Chauhan, former chief executive of Oriental Bank of Commerce; Shailendra Bhandari, former chief of erstwhile ING Vysya Bank Ltd; and Deepak Singhal, former RBI executive director.
The FSIB interacted with 17 candidates and as per the document, all eligible candidates were assessed by Deloitte for leadership competencies, the document showed.
While Joshi and Rizvi approved the minutes of the meeting through an email on the same day, Sharma, Rao, Chauhan, Bhandari and Singhal have physically signed the minutes sent to the ministry on 26 April, showed the document cited above.
Emails sent to RBI, ministry of finance, Deloitte and Pandey remained unanswered till press time.
FSIB recommendation not final
Meanwhile, according to a former RBI official, the FSIB recommendation is not final and the government does background checks which includes checking for vigilance reports, among others, before approving the candidate’s role.
“While the letter would have gone to the ministry, the FSIB and Rao would not want to bring it up in their meeting with the candidate because those meetings are to assess the candidate’s overall capability,” the former RBI official said, adding any other background information is checked at a later stage.
Meanwhile, members of the selection panel were grouped into three separate panels. While the first panel comprised Joshi and Singhal; the second one had Rao and Bhandari; while the third panel had Rizvi and Chauhan.
“The panels assessed the candidates based on the details available in their bio-data and as per extant parameters specified for the interactions, which include technical knowledge, managerial capabilities, diversity of experience, general and economic awareness and overall personality,” the document showed.
After the individual assessment of each candidate by each of the panels, the bureau met to finalize the results based on the outcome of the three panels and after assigning 50% weightage to the average of the latest available five APAR scores. APAR stands for annual performance appraisal report. The candidates were, thereafter, ranked in the order of merit and Pandey was on top the merit list, according to the document cited earlier.
“…the bureau recommends as follows: Shri Asheesh Pandey for the vacancy of MD & CEO in Indian Bank,” it said.
