HC junks PIL against Sudhir Mankad's appointment to RBI

The Gujarat High Court today dismissed a PIL challenging the appointment of former chairman of Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT-City) Sudhir Mankad as a non-officiating director of the Reserve bank of India.
The petition filed by city-based RTI activist Roshan Shah was dismissed by the division bench of Chief Justice R Subhash Reddy and Justice V M Pancholi.
Shah had contended that Mankad's credentials were subject matter of a PIL pending before the high court, so his appointment was not desirable.
The PIL, filed by D C Anjaria, former independent director of GIFT-City alleged financial irregularity in the GIFT-City project and demanded a probe by a special investigation team into awarding of contracts by the company.

A committee of Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had cleared Mankad's appointment.
"The committee of Cabinet ought to have appointed a person of clean credentials on the Board of RBI given the nature of functions that RBI exercises. Such appointment shakes public confidence in RBI," Shah had said.
Mankad, who retired as Chief Secretary of Gujarat in April 2007, served various companies as a board member before being appointed the chairman of GIFT-City. He is now one of the eight non-official directors of RBI.