Will the IOC chairman selection be scrapped?
Despite recommending four names, there's a good chance the oil ministry might scrap the IndianOil chairman selection process - yet again.
This report learns the cabinet's appointments committee (ACC) wrote to the oil ministry in the third week of September 2024, reiterating that only it has the power to change eligibility criteria when appointing directors and chairmen of state-owned companies. That includes age and education-related criteria.
"The letter was written after the (controversial) IndianOil chairman interviews (on August 11, 2024)," says a source. "The ACC sent this letter to all the ministries."
In the letter, the ACC mentions 12 criteria in the standard guidelines, which have been modified without its approval. "Several changes in the eligibility criteria have been made during recent appointments," says a source.
"The most important one was to make HR candidates ineligible for the chairman role." HR candidates were not shortlisted for the IndianOil chairman interviews on August 11 (2024).
"Even the HPCL chairman vacancy where the ministry received applications (in mid-September 2024) had criteria making HR candidates ineligible," we hear. Among the director HRs who applied for the IndianOil chairman position were IndianOil director Rashmi Govil, GAIL director Ayush Gupta, and ONGC director Manish Patil.
Just as serious, the oil ministry vacancy set 58 as the maximum age for IndianOil candidates and 57 for external candidates. "But while shortlisting candidates, the criteria were not followed," we hear.
IndianOil marketing director Satish Vaduguri was interviewed for chairman less than a year before his retirement in July 2025. Another area of concern is the vacancy date.
"Ideally, the vacancy date should have been September 1 (2023) when he (former chairman SM Vaidya) should have retired," we are told. "But the vacancy date in the notice was September 1 (2024) when his extension ended."
On September 1 (2024), the oil ministry forwarded four files to the Central Vigilance Commission after the Iatest chairman interviews: director refineries Arvind Kumar; Sanjay Parashar, ED supplies; Arvindar Singh Sahney, ED petrochemicals (and incoming IndianOil director BD); and Saumitra Srivastava, ED retail. An earlier round of PESB interviews on May 16 (2023) was inconclusive.