The Jammu and Kashmir government has ordered for the removal of J&K Bank chairman Parvez Ahmed with immediate effect. Pervez will be replaced by RK Chibber. Soon after the announcement, the Anti Corruption Bureau of J&K Police also raided the bank's headquarters in Srinagar.
The notification read, "Parvez Ahmed, Chairman cum Managing Director, shall cease to be Director on the Board of Directors of the Bank and consequently be no longer the Chairman cum Managing Director of the board."
It further said that RK Chibber has been nominated as the director on the board and may be further appointed as the interim chairman-cum-managing director of the board. Parvez was appointed as the J&K Bank chairman in 2016.
Governor versus J&K Bank
The development comes months after the J&K Governor Satya Pal Malik made startling revelations of corruption and dubious appointments in the bank especially during the Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP-BJP rule in the state. The Governor had reportedly said that nearly 582 appointments made by the J&K Bank were not done on the basis of merit but in exchange of money and political influence.
Malik said that more than 40 aspirants had approached him and complained that despite them clearing all the written and interview exams, their name did not appear in the final selection list. "I can claim with full authenticity that all the 582 appointments were not done on the basis of merit," Malik had said.
The J&K Bank had done some damage repair when Parvez took to Twitter to clear the air. He had said that the selection of relation executives for various branches of the bank across the state was a transparent process and that the J&K Governor was quoted out of context.
"There is no scope of any tinkering in the merit list prepared by reputed national level recruitment agency IBPS. We are open to public scrutiny on this," he added. Parvez clarified that the 582 appointments were made by clearing the waiting list of earlier recruitment process due to the vacancies arising when the bank branches were opened in the remote areas of the J&K.
The most recent decision of the J&K Governor to bring the J&K Bank under the ambit of Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) did not go down well with many in the valley as the institution was a fully autonomous body. The business community-based in Kashmir and economists flayed the Governor's decision calling it an undue interference in the commercial sector of the state.
