Officer aspirants on IBPS reserve list seek justice, move court

A group of 40 candidates on the reserve list of the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) for the post of probationary officer for 2016-17 has approached the Bombay High Court seeking justice in the recruitment process.

This is after IBPS, an autonomous body mandated with recruitment, selection and placement process, refused them employment despite having a ‘huge number of non-joining vacancies’ in the participating public sector banks.

One of the petitioners, who did not want to be identified, said that 10 per cent of the total candidates considered in the first round of allotment is kept in the reserve list for the post of probational officers or management trainees.

The non-joining vacancies are filled from the reserve list. The provisional allotment from the reserve list of candidates is declared on March 31 every year.

The petitioners, who hail from across the country, said more than 1,000 non-joining vacancies were left unfilled even after recruiting from the reserve list, which is more than the number of candidates who were denied jobs.

This was revealed in RTI responses given by the participating pubic sector banks. Despite having a huge number of non-joining vacancies, many of these banks went on record saying they didn’t intend to recruit in 2016-17.

However, they actively participated in the recruitment process for the year 2017-18. The candidates allotted from the reserve list are usually given appointment orders in the next financial year.

The pubic sector banks which refused to recruit from reserve list, despite having enough number of non-joining vacancies, include Punjab National Bank, Syndicate Bank, Corporation Bank, IDBI Bank and United Bank of India.

The five banks have a cumulative non-joining vacancies of 1,072, the petitioners said, citing RTIs filings. Syndicate Bank has 355 vacancies; IDBI Bank, 361; Punjab National Bank, 130; United Bank, 89; and Corporation Bank has 71.

“We were hopeful of getting allotment and waited for a year,” said the petitioner quoted above. “Despite having huge number of vacancies, most banks decided not to recruit from the reserve list. For a few of us, it was the last chance to appear for the test,” the petitioner said.

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