Jayakumar takes over as Bank of Baroda CEO

P.S. Jayakumar took charge here on Tuesday as managing director and chief executive officer of the state-run Bank of Baroda (BoB) following a weekend of raids on its Delhi branch by the CBI over a forex fraud case.

The chief executive's post at BoB had been vacant for the last 14 months. Jayakumar was named to it by the government on August 14.

Jayakumar, who was earlier with Citibank, is the second private sector executive to head a state-run bank following Rakesh Sharma, who joined Canara Bank in September.

In August, the government announced the setting up of a Banks Board Bureau (BBB) that will recommend appointment of directors in PSBs and advise on ways to raise funds and deal with issues of stressed assets.

Jayakumar will be required to deal immediately with the weekend raids by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) at 50 locations in Delhi in its ongoing probe in connection with a Bank of Baroda branch transferring over Rs.6,172 crore in foreign exchange to Hong Kong.

The CBI conducted the raids at the addresses given by the BoB branch in Ashok Vihar area of north Delhi, which transferred the money.

"Most of the addresses given by the firms involved were found to be false. But raids continued at 50 locations in the city," a CBI official said.

Saturday's raids were conducted a day after the Congress hit out at the Narendra Modi government over the transactions at the BoB branch, saying they were in contravention of rules.

More than 30 public and private sector banks may get involved in the investigation on transfer of money by 59 companies through newly opened current accounts at Bank of Baroda.

A case has been registered by the CBI under various sections related to criminal conspiracy, cheating and corruption.

"It was alleged that 59 current account holders and unknown bank officials conspired to send overseas remittances, mostly to Hong Kong, of foreign exchange worth approximately Rs.6,000 crore in illegal and irregular manner in violation of established banking norms under the garb of payments towards suspected non-existent imports," a CBI statement said on Saturday.

A senior official in Delhi told IANS that the case is under investigation and the finance ministry will ask banks to identify any existing black money trail.