Re-Engagement Quashed: HC Asks Odisha Cooperative Bank’s MD To Hand Over Charge To RCS

Cuttack: The Orissa High Court on Thursday ordered retired bureaucrat Gopabandhu Satpathy, Managing Director (MD) of the Odisha State Co-operative Bank Limited in Bhubaneswar, to immediately hand over the charge to Registrar of Cooperative Societies.

The General Administration Department had re-engaged Satpathy for a period of one year with effect from March 1, 2022. The term expires on February 28.

On January 25, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Dr S Muralidhar and Justice MS Raman quashed the impugned notification dated March 2, 2022, issued by the GA Department re-engaging him as MD of the bank and the consequential order dated March 7, 2022, issued by the Joint Registrar, Co-operative Societies approving the said re-engagement.

The court observed that the re-engagement was done without the approval of RBI and the Registrar of Cooperative Societies. “According to the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 and the Orissa Cooperative Societies Act, 1962, it is mandatory to take their approval,” the bench stated while hearing a PIL filed by one Benu Madhav Tripathy.