HC notice to Centre on appointment of REPCO Bank MD

The Madras High Court has directed the Centre to file an affidavit about the steps taken for appointing a regular managing director to the Repatriates Cooperative Finance and Development (REPCO) Bank.

A Division Bench of Justices K K Sasidharan and R Subramanian gave the direction yesterday on an appeal by All India Repatriates Welfare Association (Burma, Sri Lanka and Vietnam) of Chennai against a single judge order dismissing a plea seeking a direction to the central government to make an appointment to the post.

The bench directed the union home ministry to file an affidavit on the completion of procedure for appointment of a regular managing director to the Chennai-headquartered REPCO and posted the matter to July 16 for further hearing.

The petitioners submitted that the present managing director R Varadarajan retired in February 2016 and the post had been vacant ever since.

The Home Ministry and Public Enterprise Selection Board had not taken any initiative to start the process of recruitment of the next managing director, the petitioners alleged and said that qualifications, eligibility conditions have to be finalised 15 months before the date of occurrence of vacancy.