The exercise, first of its kind, was conducted to identify the next chairman of the country's largest commercial bank. MS Verma, the current SBI chairman, retires in November.

According to sources in the ministry, "things are still wide open" as although both Janakirman and Iyer have a slight edge over Vaidya, ultimately "seniority" is likely to hold the key.

The so-called "interview" of top executives for the chairman's post has upset the SBI top brass as never before in the history of the bank senior executives have been quizzed by the ministry for the top post.

"The finance secretary, who is an important member of the board, will play acrucial role in identifying the next SBI chairman. If he puts his foot down in recommending Vaidya's name, than he needs to be sent to head some other bank," sources said.

If Vaidya is made the chairman, the other two contenders will be made managing directors. Current managing directors, OP Setia and MP Radhakrishnan, will retire in October 1998 and January next year, respectively.

Vaidya, the senior-most DMD among the three, was heading the State Bank of Travancore till a few weeks back and is yet to get his new portfolio. Janakiraman, who is currently anchoring the Resurgent India Bond, is the bank's chief credit officer. Iyer is the managing director of State Bank of Mysore. Vaidya retires in October 2000 while Janakiraman's tenure comes to an end in February 2000 and that of Iyer in May 2000. In the State Bank's history, there have been instances, rare though, where executives jumped the queue to get the top post. For instance, Dipankar Basu bagged the chairman's post ahead of PV Subbaharao and VMahadevan -- both of whom were implicated in the securities scam. Prior to that, RK Talwar had got the nod ahead of N Ramanand Rao and RCD Nambier superseeded HC Sarkar. While Rao was sent to head Central Bank of India, Sarkar became the chairman of Bank of India.

The finance ministry is likely to announce the next SBI chairman by the end of August -- three months ahead of Verma's retirement. It had recently made an unusual delay in naming the IBDI chairman recently forcing SH Khan to demit his office without handing over the charge to any of his senior executives. GP Gupta, who took over as IDBI chairman, came to know of his new assignment at midnight on June 30 -- the day Khan stepped down.