Legal observers point out that it will be interesting to watch how government will be responding to Delhi HC’s notice on an issue which not only affects Tripathy’s posting but also whole host of top level appointments in the public sector insurance companies in the last three years
New Delhi:
On last Friday, Delhi High Court has served notice to the government of India on the issue of appointment of Satyajit Tripathy (as CMD United India Insurance(UII)) who was orginally chosen as the reserve candidate for the post of CMD of Chennai based (UII) by the Banks Board Bureau.
The government has to respond to court’s notice by Feb 3 on the matter.
The Delhi High Court was having its second hearing of a plea by Inderjeet Singh, general manger, New India Assurance who had earlier challenged the government’s decision, in the court, to appoint Tripathy after bypassing him despite the fact that he was the first one to be selected by the BBB.
However, on 17th Dec hearing, Singh had withdrawn his earlier plea to the Delhi HC that he should be appointed as the CMD of the UII.
Earlier,Justice V Kameswar Rao J of Delhi High Court, while admitting Singh’s case had reminded him about his earlier judgement in Ravi vs.Union of India & Others where he had disqualified BBB’s from selecting directors in the public sector general insurance companies as it was constituted to select the top officials the PSU banking industry.
After the Delhi HC’s earlier judgement, the government had informed the court that all the directors(except Tripathy) who were appointed by the government on the basis of selection by the BBB have been reverted back to their earlier position of general manger.
Effectively the Delhi HC will now adjudicate whether Tripathy can continue as the CMD of UII despite being selected by the BBB whose power to select directors has already been disapproved by the same court.
Legal observers point out that it will be interesting to watch how government will be responding to Delhi HC’s notice on an issue which not only affects Tripathy’s posting but also whole host of top level appointments in the public sector insurance companies in the last three years.
Also the immediate fall out of the Delhi HC’s stand on BBB will be that the head hunting agency can’t do any more interviews and recommend names for filling up the top level vacancies in the PSU insurance sector.
It is believed that ministry of finance(MoF) is now in the process of developing alternative mechanism to select the candidates for the PSU insurers.
However, with MR Kumar, chairman, Life Insurance Corporation, Raj Kumar, MD, LIC, Atul Sahai,CMD, NIA, retiring in couple of months, observers point out that the interviews for filling up these vacancies will be delayed as the new official body is yet to be in place.
BBB which was formed by the government in 2015 as a head hunting agency for the PSU banks was for the first time involved for the selection of top officials of PSU insurers in 2018 when it selected Kumar as chairman of LIC along three other MDs of the corporation.