Responding to a query by ET, Khara described the arrest as “unfortunate” and expressed confidence that his predecessor would be released unconditionally without any charges. Khara was talking to media persons in a post result conference call.
“This arrest of Mr. Pratip Choudhary is extremely unfortunate. Mr. Choudhary will be released unconditionally,” Khara said.
Chowdhary was SBI Chairman Between 7 April 2011 and 30 September 2013, he was arrested by the Rajasthan Police from his Delhi residence and taken to Jaisalmer on Monday.
case refers toGarh Rajwada‘ Hotel project in Jaisalmer, financed by SBI in 2007. As the project was not completed for three years and a major promoter died in April 2010, the account slipped into the non-performing asset (NPA) category in June 2010. Subsequently, the loan was sold in 2014 to Alchemist Asset Reconstruction Company (ARC), of which Chowdhury became a director upon retirement from the bank.
Khara explained that Chowdhury as chairman would not be involved in recovery of such a small loan.
“Issues of this magnitude are always dealt with locally and the top management of the bank including the chairman is not involved in taking such decisions,” Khara said. He expressed confidence that the government would heed the request of the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) to look into the matter.
“The banking community through IBA has taken up the matter with the government authorities and I hope this matter is behind us very soon. As regards SBI as FSR, we follow best practices and corporate governance and I would like to share with you. I can assure that there was no irregularity in the said matter and the rules and procedures laid down by the bank were followed to deal with this account. We have got the structure and we are very confident that our people in the hierarchy will be able to handle such cases. I can decide,” Khara said.