The Governor Satya Pal Malik though tasked the job of the restoration of law and political reconciliation is tinkering with the key institutions of the government and his latest unwanted intervention in the working of Jammu & Kashmir Bank has angered people of all shades including mainstream and separatist politicians , leaders of trading bodies and civil society groups. Declaring Jammu & Kashmir Bank a public sector bank in the eyes of constitutional experts is governor’s abortive attempt to interfere in the normal working of the bank and the constitution of the bank’s board of directors. With the declaring of Jammu & Kashmir Bank a public sector bank the Jammu & Kashmir government will have the discretion to nominate private members who were otherwise inducted the board through a proper election process. Giving state government the authority to nominate the members for the board of directors shows the intents of the governor in changing the administrative and financial nomenclature of the bank. Though Governor has clarified that the incumbent dispensation has no intents of interfering in the administrative and financial working of the bank but power to nominate members for the bank’s Board of Directors (BoD) is in itself an indication that government tends to control the highest decision making body of the bank and henceforth the working of the bank. By all standards of understandabilities the major role of the government in the Board of Directors (BoD) would reduce the bank chairman to a rubber stamp Chief Executive as government would have power and authority to appoint even a managing director as a parallel power centre in the bank.
Any delay in the roll back of the controversial SAC decision could lead to a faceoff between the Government and the bank employees as the All India J&K Bank Officers Federation has already hinted at the possibility of announcing a protest schedule for the resistance campaign against the changing of Jammu & Kashmir Bank into a public sector bank. After all the Jammu and Kashmir Bank is the premier financial institution of the state but not an ancillary wing of the Jammu & Kashmir Government always depended on overdrafts from the bank.
Though two successive popular governments headed by Omar Abdullah have ruined the bank by allowing backdoor recruitments and stalling the recovery of huge loans from those running Non Performing Accounts (NPAs) but top they have opposed the controversial State Administrative Council (SAC) decision that declared the Jammu & Kashmir Bank a public sector bank . Any delay in the roll back of the controversial SAC decision could lead to a faceoff between the Government and the bank employees as the All India J&K Bank Officers Federation has already hinted at the possibility of announcing a protest schedule for the resistance campaign against the changing of Jammu & Kashmir Bank into a public sector bank. After all the Jammu and Kashmir Bank is the premier financial institution of the state but not an ancillary wing of the Jammu & Kashmir Government always depended on overdrafts from the bank.
