A team of the Jammu and Kashmir Vigilance Commission on Saturday raided the headquarters of the J&K Bank in Srinagar, hours after an official communique announced the removal of Parvez Ahmad as the bank chairman.
A bank employee told The Hindu that the entry and exit points of the bank headquarters in Srinagar were sealed by the security forces in the afternoon. "Employees were barred from leaving the premises," said the employee.
The vigilance team accessed the Human Resource department and the main office of the former chairman for investigation. There has been no official communique from the vigilance department on the reasons behind the raids.
The move came just hours after Vishal Sharma, additional secretary of the State Finance Department, issued an order announcing “cessation of Mr. Ahmad on the Board of Directors (BoD) of the J&K Bank. Mr. Ahmad cease to be director on the BoD and no longer be chairman cum managing director of the board,” reads the order.
R.K. Chibber has been nominated as director on the board and “an interim chairman” of the bank. The bank was mired in a controversy over its recent recruitment in the State. Established in 1938, the State Government holds 59.3% share in the bank. Governor Satya Pal Malik-headed State Administrative Council (SAC) on November 22 last year approved a proposal to treat the bank as Public Sector Undertaking and evoked criticism from regional political parties. National Conference (NC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had then termed it “a conspiracy to rob the bank, the sole lender to the J&K State, of its autonomy”.
However, the Governor's order then claimed that the board of the bank was competent to take decisions regarding employees’ salary and other decisions. “The bank will be regulated by the RBI as an old generation private sector bank, by the Registrar of Companies as it is a Government Company under Companies Act and by the SEBI as it is a listed company,” Mr. Malik’s order said.
The Governor had also accused the bank of recruiting people in 2018 "under the influence of the politicians from the regional parties like PDP and NC". However, the recent recruitment saw the Raj Bhawan also at the Centre of controversy.
