New Delhi: The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) has asked the Unit Trust of India (UTI) Bank to conduct an independent enquiry for its failed merger with Global Trust Bank (GTB) charging that UTI Bank's chairman "stood to gain personally from the merger".

"The Board of UTI Bank should conduct an independent enquiry regarding the failed merger," JPC, probing into the stock scam of 2001, said in its draft report.

"The then UTI chairman P S Subramanyam and the chairman and managing director (CMD) of UTI Bank P J Nayak (who stood to gain personally from the merger) are substantially responsible for the lack of transparency in UTI and the UTI Bank's decision making process and the failure to conduct a due diligence exercise," the report said.

It said that the decision was driven by the GTB chairman Ramesh Gelli and UTI Bank CMD Nayak, while "it was understandable for Gelli to push the proposal, as both GTB and he personally stood to gain from the merger, UTI as well as UTI Bank should have been much more circumspect".

"Nayak, as the head of UTI Bank and especially because he stood to gain personally from the merger, should have got a due diligence of the proposal conducted," JPC said.

It said that the Boards of UTI Bank and UTI have till date not gone into the managerial failure involved in processing with the merger and that UTI Board was informed about UTI Bank's decision on the merger without the UTI Bank Board having first taken the decision.

Citing this, JPC said that the enquiry should focus on managerial failure in not getting a due diligence conducted, anomalies in the decision making process and lessons learnt regarding any future merger talks.

PTI