HDFC Bank paid outgoing part-time chairman Atanu Chakraborty a combined Rs 1.07 crore in FY26, made up of Rs 59 lakh in sitting fees and Rs 48.25 lakh in fixed remuneration, according to the bank's annual report.
Chakraborty resigned as part-time chairman and independent director with effect from March 18, 2026, less than two weeks before the financial year closed.
The annual report notes only that he stepped down "which led to speculation on the Bank's governance standards," and that his resignation letter contained a statement whose implications the board considered warranted review.
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Interim chairman Keki Mistry's message in the report states that the board acted swiftly, appointing him as interim part-time chairman on the same day, March 18, 2026, with RBI approval, and separately engaging external law firms to examine whether any concern was evident from Chakraborty's statement.
His sitting fees placed him in the middle of the pack among the bank's non-executive directors for the year, behind Sandeep Parekh's Rs 1.20 crore and M.D. Ranganath's Rs 96 lakh, but ahead of members like Renu Karnad and Harsh Kumar Bhanwala.
Pay Against Median
HDFC Bank's disclosures put Chakraborty's remuneration at 19.50 times the median employee's pay for FY26, a ratio calculated on his fixed pay alone and higher than five of the eight other non-executive and independent directors on the board that year.
The comparison sits against a backdrop in which median remuneration across the bank's 2,11,178 permanent employees rose 11.43% during the year, driven mainly by annual increments and promotions among front-line, sales and overseas staff. Chakraborty's own fixed entitlement, by contrast, was a flat Rs 50 lakh set for the full year.
The payout came in a year the bank spent reviewing the circumstances of his exit. The board constituted a Special Committee comprising solely independent directors to oversee the legal review, and on June 26, 2026 received the law firms' findings, which did not substantiate the statement or its implications.
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