In a sudden development which was effected on Sunday, Bhupendra Vishnoi, Managing Director of UP State Cooperative Bank was removed from his post. Additional Registrar of Cooperative Societies of Uttar Pradesh Varun Mishra took over the additional charge of MD at the Bank’s headquarters in Lucknow.
Vishnoi was removed from the position in the wake of an FIR lodged against him by the SIT due to his alleged involvement in the illegal recruitment done in cooperatives during the Samajwadi Party regime. Rebutting the charges levelled against him Vishnoi said, “I have not done anything which were against the established rules and regulations; I am sure I will be absolved of all charges in the probe”.
It bears recalling that Vishnoi himself was an Additional Registrar in the co-op department before he was made MD of the UP State Cooperative Bank about two and a half years ago. Now he has been sent back to his parent organization.
Talking to Indian Cooperative on Monday, the newly appointed MD Mishra said, “I have taken over the charge of the bank only a few hours ago and I am unable to respond to your queries satisfactorily; I will come back to you after overseeing the activities of the bank. All I can tell you presently is that I will work hard to strengthen the bank”, he said. Mishra joined as the Additional Registrar in 2014.
The letter of the appointment of Mishra was released on Sunday and signed by B L Meena, Principal Secretary (Cooperatives).
Talking to Indian Cooperative several co-operators expressed their unhappiness with the development. “How can a man who is looking after the housing co-op, can run a cooperative bank. The Uttar Pradesh government has failed to appoint a professional Managing Director in the bank which has become the fiefdom of the cooperative department, as is the case with the Uttarakhand State Cooperative Bank”, they said.
Readers would recall that earlier after the SIT report was made public, the first head to roll was that of Principal Secretary, Cooperative MVS Rami Reddy who was transferred from his post. Rami Reddy is alleged to have attempted to suppress the investigation of the recruitment scam in the Cooperative Department and the State Warehousing Corporation. The scam dates to regimes of SP and BSP.
According to the SIT report, Ram Jatan Yadav, the then chairman Uttar Pradesh Co-operative Institutional Service Board, had appointed Ram Pravesh Yadav’s computer agency Axis designate Technology Private Limited for the recruitment without any advertisement, tender and the process of quotation. The OMR sheets were rigged in collaboration with the company.
Along with this, the operator of the computer agency destroyed the hard disk of the computer used in scanning along with Ram Jatan for erasing the evidence.
