SC bench declines to hear BoR shareholders' plea
31 May 2010
The Supreme Court today declined to hear a petition filed by shareholders of the Bank of Rajasthan (BoR), who were objecting to its merger with ICICI Bank.
A two-judge vacation bench comprising justices G S Singhvi and C K Prasad asked the petitioners to approach another bench, as it will not entertain the case.
The ICICI Bank had, on 23 May, agreed to merge the ailing Bank of Rajasthan through a share swap. The non-cash deal valued BoR at about Rs3,000 crore.
ICICI would offer 25 of its shares for every 118 shares of Bank of Rajasthan held by its the promoters. The Tayal family, which have over 50 per cent stake in BoR, would not, however, get a seat on the amalgamated bank's board.
ICICI Bank, meanwhile, assured employees of the 4,000-odd employees of Bank of Rajasthan that there would be no layoffs or discrimination against new employees post acquisition.
"Whenever we do a merger and acquisition, we treat the employees of the acquired bank as a part of our parivar (family), we will take care of them (BoR employees) as our own employees, we are not here to retrench people," ICICI bank managing director and CEO Chanda Kochhar said.
ICICI Bank, the country's largest private sector lender, had earlier acquired Bank of Madura and Sangli Bank.
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