KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Friday issued notices to the state government and Malappuram District Cooperative Bank (DCB) on a petition filed by the employees of the bank seeking a directive to immediately amalgamate the bank with the newly formed Kerala State Cooperative Bank. The petition was filed by 263 employees of the bank. They submitted that the government had brought in a law amalgamating all 14 district cooperative banks into a single bank, namely Kerala State Cooperative Bank. According to the law, each district cooperative bank was required to pass a resolution by a simple majority for merging their bank with the Kerala bank.
All district cooperative banks except the Malappuram bank passed such a resolution. A resolution for amalgamating the Malappuram bank with Kerala Bank could not be passed due to the vested interests of a few directors of the bank. They wanted to continue with misutilisation of the huge assets of the bank. All other district operative banks had become members of Kerala Bank. The consequence of not becoming part of the newly formed bank was that the entire functioning of the main Malappuram DCB and its 54 branches had come to a standstill.
Besides, employees of the bank would be excluded from the staff integration process along with the staff of the other 13 amalgamated banks, stated the petitioners. Senior Government Pleader K P Harish submitted that the government has approached the Governor seeking to issue an ordinance for the amalgamation of Malappuram DCB.;