INDUSIND BANK AT A BEND

The new boss will have to engage with the Reserve Bank of India more closely and could be asked to undertake a clean-up of the system

- BY RAGHU MOHAN

FOLLOWING THE RESIGNATION of former IndusInd Bank CEO Sumant Kathpalia, under a new arrangement, a committee of executives— Soumitra Sen, head of consumer banking, and Anil Rao, chief administrative officer—will jointly discharge the duties of the CEO until a successor is appointed, or for a maximum period of three months. In a dramatic turn of events, Kathpalia resigned in the last week of April. “I undertake moral responsibility, given the various acts of commission/omission that have been brought to my notice. I would request that my resignation be taken on record at the close of working hours today,” he said in a statement. The bank’s deputy CEO, Arun Khurana, had resigned a day before.

In the new order, Sen and Rao would report to an oversight committee headed by the chairman of the bank, Sunil Mehta. Key members from departments like audit, compensation, nomination and remuneration, and risk management, would be a part of the committee.

In March this year, when IndusInd Bank’s woes made news, Ashok Hinduja, chairman, of IndusInd International Holdings Ltd, said, “Once the report comes, it will go to the board. They will review (the report); they have their various committees. And then, they will take a call on who is the person responsible for the past so many years—whether it was one person, two persons, or whether it was an error.”