New Delhi, May 5 (IANS): The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought response from the central government and the Reserve Bank of India on a PIL challenging the government's move to appoint executives from private sector financial institutions as heads of five large public sector banks.

Issuing notice on a plea by K.D. Khera, a former president of All India Bank Officers Confederation, a bench of Justice Anil R. Dave and Justice R.K.Agrawal also sought response from the Punjab National Bank, IDBI Bank, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India and Canara Bank.

The PIL petition has challenged the February 26 advertisement by the department of financial services of the finance ministry, contending that inviting applications for the post of MD and CEO in the public sector banks is against the constitutional and statutory framework.

The government move to promote outsiders in the public sector banks is discriminatory to the "well-experienced, in-house staff of these banks, who are more capable to take up these appointments", the PIL said.

Khera told the court that the senior level personnel and employees at the public sector banks have worked there for decades and form the backbone of the Indian banking industry. However, they are now being "completely overlooked for these posts through the aforesaid advertisement".

Assailing the eligibility criteria advertised by the government for the MD & CEO of the five banks holding huge investments of general public, Khera has contended that criteria has been so designed that "all the all existing executive directors of PSB (who were the only people eligible under the old policy) will automatically become ineligible solely on account of cut-off age of 55 years with three years board experience".

Attributing "malafide", Khera has contended that cut-off age has been "purposely" kept at 55 years as it would make only private sector applicants solely eligible.