Let me just get right to it. You called it an unfortunate event on the con call earlier, but you know, Atanu Chakraborty actually served alongside you since 2021. He sat in the same boardroom meetings, reviewed the same numbers. You know, and he's left citing practices not in congruence with his values. You know, as the person who was running this bank day-to-day, did you not have any indication that this was coming?
No. We had no such indication. So, we did sort of persuade if he could sort of remove some of the contentious lines, but I guess he felt that that was his calling and it's something that is innocuous. So, he wanted to keep that as it is. I know that these lines did sort of cause a little bit of a stir among the minds of the directors. And that matter you can see how the entire investor community has also reacted to this.
You know, Mr. Jagdishan, since we understand there was friction between Mr. Chakraborty's style of working and perhaps what was expected out of that non-executive position. You know, just for the benefit of our viewers, if you could elaborate on how your working relationship, how would you describe your working relationship with Mr. Atanu Chakraborty given that he spent all this time since 2021 working with you.
No, no, there was no friction. See, in a very good governance model, people have to, and we are a democracy and we are a democratic institution. So, people will have to have views. Some of the views we may agree, some of the views we may not agree. There are points that I may not agree with all the decisions or the views and that is something that I'm not apologetic about. So, it's been extremely cordial. It's not what one makes out to be as a very... what is the word you used? Sorry.
Yeah. You know, Mr. Jagdishan, if you could also address some of these concerns that have been voiced over social media regarding the sale of, you know, HDB Financial which eventually of course had to go IPO. That there were disagreements with Atanu Chakraborty, especially in relation with Mr. Kaizad Bharucha as well. That, you know, that was one of the big reasons for his disagreements with the working of the management and some of these ideas. On the HDB issue specifically, was there a concern that was raised by Mr. Chakraborty? Did he differ with the view of the bank on how to proceed on that matter?
See, I think it's very unfair to say that is that the reason of disagreement or is this one of the reasons for disagreement? That's not something one should even comment on the credibility of the process in that committee.
Mr. Jagdishan, what does the bank now need to do to assuage various stakeholders that everything is okay? We of course saw that rare statement coming in from RBI in support of the bank. You know, you yourself have clarified this matter several times. But do you think as a next step an independent investigation is something that is required to look into some of the concerns that may or may not have, you know, been pointed out by Atanu Chakraborty. What is the next step you will take to assuage stakeholders?
Proactively, I think we would undertake some amount of, because most of the issues are very transparent and it's sort of any issue that is flagged off by the first line of defense or the second line of defense or the third line of defense for all, or to any of the committees, is something that is addressed periodically and in a defined time frame. So, having said that, we would like to re-examine in our own way as to what are the decisions that have been taken, what are the decisions which have not, you know, been agreed upon, etc. to try and see whether there are any things that we need to tighten or enrich.
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Jagdishan, S. (2026, March 19). HDFC Bank CEO, Sashidhar Jagdishan Says Atanu Chakraborty’s Resignation Came With "No Indication" [Interview transcript]. CNBC-TV18. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/773033/
MLA
Sashidhar Jagdishan. "HDFC Bank CEO, Sashidhar Jagdishan Says Atanu Chakraborty’s Resignation Came With "No Indication"." CNBC-TV18, 19 Mar. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/773033/.
BibTeX
@misc{jagdishan2026_773033,
author = {Sashidhar Jagdishan},
title = {HDFC Bank CEO, Sashidhar Jagdishan Says Atanu Chakraborty’s Resignation Came With "No Indication"},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, CNBC-TV18. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {mar},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/773033/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
