HDFC Bank names former CEC, financial services secretary Rajiv Kumar as chairman

Mumbai: The board of HDFC Bank, late on Monday, approved the appointment of Rajiv Kumar as part-time chairman and additional (independent) director, three days after an external legal review cleared the bank in the controversy surrounding the exit of former chairman Atanu Chakraborty.

Kumar, who is a former chief election commissioner (CEC) and financial services secretary, will succeed interim chairman Keki Mistry.

The appointment requires approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) under banking regulations. Kumar’s position as chairman will be valid for three years from the date of approval by RBI.

His appointment as independent director will be for four years effective 30 June 2026. Both appointments are subject to shareholder approval as well.

Kumar will be the second IAS officer to hold the position after his junior and former chairman Chakraborty—a retired 1985 batch IAS officer of the Gujarat cadre—stepped down in March 2026, after citing concerns over “certain happenings and practices within the bank”. Kumar is a 1984-batch IAS officer from the Jharkhand cadre.

Kumar’s appointment comes ahead of the board’s decision on managing director and chief executive officer Sashidhar Jagdishan’s reappointment, which is due for review when his current term ends on 26 October 2026. Mint had earlier reported that the board was awaiting the findings of an external legal review before taking a call on his reappointment.

The bank released the findings on 26 June, saying that a thorough and objective review had concluded that there was “no basis” for former chairman Chakraborty’s statements.

Media reports had earlier indicated that former RBI deputy governor Rajeshwar Rao could be in the running for the chairman’s role.

A Macquarie Research note on Monday said that achieving clarity and stability across the bank’s senior leadership ranks serves as a significant positive catalyst, allowing management to redirect focus from navigating governance-related distractions towards driving business momentum and restoring a full business-as-usual operating cadence.

Separately, the board of HDFC Bank today also approved the appointment of Puneet Sharma as chief financial officer (CFO) -designate effective 1 September, 2026 and as the chief financial officer with effect from 1 December, 2026. Sharma, currently the CFO at Axis Bank, resigned from the position on 28 June and will remain with the bank until 31 August. At HDFC Bank, he will replace incumbent CFO Srinivasan Vaidyanathan whose current term is set to end in October 2026.

Kumar’s background

Kumar served as secretary of the department of financial services (DFS) from 2017 to 2020. In that role, he cracked down on shell companies and black money in the financial services system and facilitated curbs on Ponzi schemes through The Banning of Unregulated Deposits Schemes Act, 2019.

He also spearheaded a comprehensive clean-up of public sector bank balance sheets with a focus on profitability and improved asset quality. This involved the ₹3 trillion recapitalization of public sector banks, consolidation of 27 PSU banks into 12 stronger entities, increase in the deposit insurance cover from ₹1 lakh to ₹5 lakh, and rationalization of regional rural banks (RRBs) into a one state–one RRB structure.

Kumar also served on or chaired bodies such as the Central Board of the RBI, the Financial Stability and Development Council, the Bank Board Bureau, and the boards of State Bank of India and Nabard, among others.

Following his retirement as finance secretary in February 2020, he briefly served as the chairman of Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB).

Thereafter, he joined the Election Commission of India (ECI) as election commissioner on 1 September 2020, and retired as India’s 25th chief election commissioner on 18 February 2025.

At HDFC Bank, he will replace Mistry, who had taken over the chairmanship in an interim role for three months after former chairman Chakraborty resigned on 17 March 2026.

At the time of taking charge, Mistry had said he was not keen to continue as chairman as he was filling in temporarily till the bank found another candidate. On 18 June, the RBI approved a three-month extension to his tenure as part-time chairman until 18 September or till a regular part-time chairman is appointed, whichever is earlier.

Chairman vs bank

Chakraborty had resigned from HDFC Bank — India’s largest bank by market capitalisation — citing “certain happenings and practices within the bank” that were “not in congruence” with his personal values and ethics.

While he did not elaborate on the reason in his letter to the board, in a televised interview a few days later he hinted that the “mis-selling” of Credit Suisse’s perpetual bonds was a bone of contention between him and the bank’s management.

In response to his exit, HDFC Bank appointed law firms to check the minutes of the board meetings and see if there were any discrepancies that Chakraborty had pointed out.

On 26 June, HDFC Bank notified that law firms Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Wadia Ghandy & Co. had conducted the legal review and found “no basis for the statement” made by Chakraborty.

“In sum, the contemporaneous evidence reviewed was inconsistent with Chakraborty’s statement, and external law firms’ review did not identify any basis for the statement,” the bank had said in a statement late on Friday evening.

Chakraborty termed the appointment of external law firms and the resulting report a “superfluous exercise”, saying that the bank refused to disclose the terms of reference or the legal basis for such a review, Mint reported on 27 June.