The petition filed by Benu Madhav Tripathy before the High Court had challenged the General Administration and Public Grievance Department in this regard and sought for the HC’s intervention for its quashing.
Calcutta High Court [File photo]
The Orissa High Court on Wednesday quashed the re-engagement of retired bureaucrat Gopabandhu Satpathy as Managing Director (MD) of the Odisha State Co-operative Bank Limited in Bhubaneswar and ruled that “it is unsustainable in law as per the Banking Regulation Act”.
The General Administration Department (in accordance with an earlier Resolution dated 27 August 2014), had issued the re-engagement of retired IAS officer Gopabandhu Satpathy as Managing Director, Odisha State Co-operative Bank for a period of one year from 1 March 2022.
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Satpathy’s re-engagement tenure as per the GA department notification is scheduled to end on 1 March of the current year.
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The petition filed by Benu Madhav Tripathy before the High Court had challenged the General Administration and Public Grievance Department in this regard and sought for the HC’s intervention for its quashing.
The principal contention of the petition was that re-engagement is in violation of Section 35-B (1) (b) of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 (BR Act) as well as Section 28 (3-b) (1) of the Orissa Co-operative Societies Act, 1962 (OCS Act).
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Dr S Muralidhar and Justice M.S.Raman quashed the impugned Notification dated 2 March, 2022 issued by the G.A. Department re-engaging of MD of the Bank and the consequential order dated 7 March, 2022 issued by the Joint Registrar, Co-operative Societies approving the said reengagement.
“The Notification dated 2nd March, 2022 re-engaging Satpathy as MD of the Bank for a period of one year with effect from 1st March, 2022 is not only in violation of the binding provisions of Section 28 (3-b) (1) read with Section 28(1) of the OCS Act but is also contrary to Section 35-B (1) (b) of the Banking Regulation Act and is, therefore, unsustainable in law”, the division bench stated in the order.
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