In a draw held openly on Wednesday, the National Credit and Commerce Bank Limited (NCCBL) elected the 13 directors as negotiations failed to convince directors for a voluntary exit from the bloated 27-member board.

Earlier, overnight discussion at a board meeting on Tuesday failed to downsize the board.

Then the directors had to participate in the lottery, setting the first such instance by a private bank in Bangladesh.

The bank has chosen three directors from general shareholders while four incumbent sponsor directors were found eligible to continue as they did not serve as directors for more than six years. The bank had to elect six others through lottery.

The PCBs are now in a process of electing directors for their boards as per a Bangladesh Bank circular issued on April 26 that instructed the PCBs to keep the number of directors in their respective board within 13.

The central bank circular also instructed that nobody would be allowed to serve as a director for more than six years in two consecutive terms.

Meanwhile, another PCB, Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited, has postponed its director election due to a 10-day injunction from a lower court. The bank held an AGM on Thursday but could not elect 13 directors following the court order.

Islami Bank has now 23 directors in its board. Three of them obtained the injunction as they filed a petition against the bank, its chairman and the board arguing that they had been deprived of their right to contest the director election.

Earlier, 18 directors from different PCBs jointly filed a writ petition against the central bank circular, but the High Court did not serve any stay order on it. The HC only asked the central bank to explain the matter.

Last week, National Bank Limited reduced the number of directors to 13 through negotiations among the 22 existing directors. South East Bank Limited has already kept the number within 13, as per the BB directive.

At present, 30 PCBs have around 500 directors in their boards.