SC refuses to stay merger of Vijaya, Dena banks with BOB
New Delhi, Mar 28: Clearing the decks for the scheduled merger of three public sector lenders Vijaya Bank, Dena Bank and Bank of Baroda the Supreme Court on Thursday refused to stay the amalgamation.
The top court dismissed the applications filed by several bank officers' associations for staying the merger, effective April 1.
The proposed amalgamation will make Bank of Baroda, which will merge the other two lenders with itself, the second largest public sector bank after State Bank of India in place of Punjab National Bank.
A bench of Justices R F Nariman and Vineet Sharan said, "All interlocutory applications seeking stay are dismissed".
At the outset, senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for bank officers associations, said that there were several flaws in the decision taken for merger of three banks as there was no effective consultation or concurrence with the Reserve Bank of India on the issue.
He said that even the board of directors of the banks were not adequately constituted to take a decision of merger like this.
"The Board of Directors should have been informed and given time to contemplate on the proposed merger of the banks but every thing happened on January 2," Divan said.
He said that the board of directors passed a resolution on January 2, cabinet approved the decision on the same date and even the gazette notification was issued on the same day.
The bench asked Divan as how is he affected by the decision of merger of the banks.
He said that employees will suffer due to the merger as there will be an aspect of redundancy.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Bank of Baroda, said the merger was done within the statutory framework and all requisite procedure was duly followed.
"All the banks in question are public sector banks and as far as employees are concerned, under the scheme their terms and conditions of employment will remain the same. They are not affected at all. It was a policy decision that two weaker banks join one stronger bank," he said.
He said that as far as effective consultation with RBI is concerned, the process had started way back in September 17, 2018.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Union of India also opposed the plea of bank officers and said it was purely an economic policy decision taken by the government for which detailed consultation has taken place.
He said three committees were constituted, Parliament was informed and the RBI was consulted after which in principle consent was given.
"Everything was done in a purely transparent manner and this is an economic policy decision taken by the government," he said.
The bench then said it is rejecting all the applications seeking immediate stay of the decision to merge the three banks.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
