Serious corp governance concerns under CEO: Yes Bank audit head

In a major blow to Yes Bank and its CEO Ravneet Gill, Uttam Prakash Agarwal, Chairman of the bank's Audit Committee and Independent Director, resigned on Friday with immediate effect, citing the falling standards of corporate governance and compliance failures under Gill's leadership.

He also tendered his resignation from all other committees of the Board raising serious concerns on falling of standards of corporate governance.

Agarwal has blamed Gill and other senior management for serious concerns about corporate governance, management practices and how the company is being run.

"There are serious concerns as regards deteriorating standards of the corporate governance, failure of compliance, management practices and the manner in which the state of affairs of the Company are being conducted by Ravneet Gill-MD/CEO, Rajiv Ubeoi-Senior Group President Governance &Controls, Sanjay Nambiar-Legal Head and Board of Directors," Agarwal said in his resignation letter.

"I have raised my concerns on these very critical matters from time to time in the overall interest of Yes Bank Ltd., and millions of its small and large depositors, investors, shareholders and all other stakeholders. I have left no stone unturned to discharge my duties and thus wrote a letter detailing all these matters in the attached letter dated 9th January, 2020 (which is submitted to all the regulatory authorities)", Agarwal said pointing out that the letter is marked to the regulators since the matter relates to corporate governance failures.

"Irrespective of my resignation, I hope, our Bank gets stabilised and protects the interests of all shareholders and stakeholders, under your able leadership," he said in the letter to Chairman of the Board, Brahm Dutt.

Yes Bank said in a filing that Agarwal has made certain observations on the Bank's governance and the same shall be duly examined by the Board. It retorted by saying that Agarwal's "fit and proper" status was under review and on the same day when the opinions from lawyers were to be examined, the director quit.

"In this regard, the Bank would like to further intimate that the Bank was reviewing the 'fit and proper' status of Mr. Agarwal as directed by the Reserve Bank of AIndia. In this respect, the Bank had obtained legal opinions from eminent jurists. These opinions were to be considered by the Nomination and Remuneration Committee of the Board ('NRC')/the Board of the Bank in their meetings scheduled for today, i.e., January 10, 2020. However, prior to the commencement of the proceedings of these meetings, the Bank received the resignation of Mr. Agarwal," Yes Bank said.

( With inputs from IANS )