A Government appointed search panel will conduct interviews for selecting the Chairman of the country’s largest bank SBI on September 21.
All the four Managing Directors of State Bank of India have been called for the interview, a senior Finance Ministry official said.
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), headed by the Prime Minister, had recently suggested that all the four SBI MDs should be called for the interview.
The incumbent Chairman Pratip Chaudhuri is set to retire at the end of this month.
The Finance Ministry had sought exemption in regulatory guidelines so that more candidates could be interviewed for SBI’s top post.
Based on that, ACC suggested that the Finance Ministry invite all the four MDs for the interview, sources said.
ACC comprises the Home Minister and the administrative ministry in-charge (the Finance Ministry in this case).
As per the norms, a candidate for the post of Chairman is eligible for the interview if he/she has at least two years of service left before retirement.
Going by this rule, only one of the four Managing Directors, Arundhati Bhattacharya, is eligible for the post.
Another Managing Director A Krishna Kumar has one year and three months left before his retirement. He will retire in November next year, while Bhattacharya recently elevated as MD will retire in March 2016.
The term of senior-most Managing Director Hemant Contractor, who is group executive for international banking, ends in February next year.
S Viswanathan, MD in-charge of subsidiaries and associates, will retire in April 2014.
Prior to her elevation, Bhattacharya was MD and Chief Executive of SBI Caps, the merchant banking subsidiary of SBI.