Saraswat Bank mired in employment controversy

Saraswat Bank mired in employment controversy
K S Manojkumar

AURANGABAD, JUNE 8: Can a Co-operative Bank have the privilege to invite applications for filling up vacancies from a particular university alone? Or is it obliged to give equal opportunity to everyone before it arrives at a decision?

Members of the academic council of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University are all up in arms against the Saraswat Co-operative Bank which released an advertisement denying the university students an opportunity for appearing at interviews for some top posts of the bank.

So incensed were the academic council members at the advertisement that they passed a resolution asking Vice Chancellor Dr K P Sonawane, to close down all accounts the university holds with the bank and have sought intervention of Chancellor Dr P C Alexander into the whole affair.

The bank's clarification later, that the posts were of specialized nature, and were intended for `highly qualified' candidates like CA, MBA (Finance), MCS, and MCA, in branches situated in Mumbai, only helped to add insult to injury.

Senior member of the university council, Dr Ramdas Ambulgekar, talking to The Indian Express said the university was examining whether the bank's advertisement amounted to violation of fundamental rights of equal opportunities and rights to all citizens, as provided in the Constitution, before taking any steps further.

While council members accused the bank of preventing students from Marathwada from assuming top position in the bank, despite their capabilities, the bank, in a press note has pointed out that as many as 56 of the total 76 officials in its four branches in Marathwada were from the region.

This has, however, done little to calm the rising passions among students and academicians over the issue. While bank officials insist that the post advertised were only for vacancies in Mumbai and thus it was justified in inserting a clause to restrict aspirants to Mumbai area, student leaders now are demanding whether the bank had added similar clauses when it invited applications to fill up post in its various branches in Marathwada.

Interestingly, Sonawane had sought an explanation from the bank's chairman over the advertisement almost three months ago, but its chairman, Ashok Pandit, never responded.

It was only when public pressure grew, over the bank, following an academic council's resolution condemning it, that Pandit, came up with the reply. ``Pandit's long silence only proves what he thought about the whole matter,'' dean of the faculty for medicine, Dr Ambulgekar said talking to The Indian Express.