Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking regional names be removed from the title of Punjab National Bank (PNB) and Bank of Baroda (BoB) as people, especially in remote areas, may get confused whether these are regional banks or national banks.
A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice MS Karnik dismissed the PIL by Onkar Sharma, senior internal auditor with PNB, terming the same as “misconceived”.
Sharma had filed a PIL praying that the HC “pass an order to christen afresh the title name of Punjab National Bank and Bank of Baroda by removing regional words (i.e. Punjab and Baroda) from its title name”.
According to the plea, PNB was established in May 1894 and BOB in July 1908. Both the banks were nationalised in 1969.
In March 2019, Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank, both nationalised banks, merged with BoB. Similarly in March 2020, Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India merged with PNB.
Sharma contended that the banks’ regional names were based on the place of their origin. With their widespread network, they are national banks and also enjoy international status. However, people in remote areas get confused whether these banks are regional banks or national/international banks.
PNB has 10,769 branches in the country and providing banking facilities to about 180 million customers. Also it has some overseas branches. Till date, 9 banks, including 3 nationalised banks, have been merged with PNB.
BoB has 9449 branches with 131 million customers and 100 plus overseas branches.
The court noted that though it is “not the province of this court to delve upon issues” of name change of banks, it is not even Sharma’s case that the “regional name has in any manner come in the way of banks’ growth”.
Sharma’s plea mentioned the massive customer base of the banks and progress it made overseas. However, the plea did not point out a statutory embargo prohibiting these banks from using regional names.
“These are ultimately matters for consideration of the administration/competent authorities of the concerned banks,” said HC.
“We are more than satisfied that there is no semblance of public interest must less substantial public interest involved for entertaining the PIL petition. We fail to appreciate as to how this PIL petition aims at redressal of genuine public harm or public injury,” it added.
