Gopalakrishna's name was in the reckoning for Deputy Governor in place of Anand Sinha who retired in January.
The move will help curb card frauds. Currently, customers use only personal identification number for automated teller machine transactions.
The central bank has nine executive directors, and one of them -- S Karuppasamy -- retired recently. R Gandhi, who was executive director, has now been promoted to the post of deputy governor.
A rule change may make Nachiket Mor, among others, eligible to replace Chakrabarty.
It's time the regulator did some introspection.