Sound financial health of a bank is the guarantee not only to its depositors but is equally significant for the shareholders, employees and whole economy as well. As sequel to this maxim, efforts have been made from time to time to measure the financial position of each bank and manage it efficiently and effectively.Indian banking sector widely includes commercial, nationalized, co-operative, private and international banks in its fold. In the present study an attempt is made to evaluate the financial performance of three major commercial banks (IOB, Canara Bank and Syndicate Bank) using CAMELS Rating Model. CAMELS rating model is basically an approach widely used to measure the performance of banking unit inside and outside India. This model measures the performance of banks from all important parameters like Capital adequacy, Asset quality, Management efficiency, Earning quality, Liquidity and sensitivity to market. The study is based on secondary data drawn from the annual reports. For the purpose of evaluation the data's of five years (2011-2016) before demonetization are analyzed by calculating the 17 ratios related to CAMELS rating model. It is found out that according to Basel Norm the overall state of capital adequacy of all the three banks are satisfactory. As far as loan portfolio is concern, the overall state of asset quality and management efficiency are satisfactory, whereas the earning capacity of the banks is not and the liquidity is also not satisfactory. The high level of NPAs and sluggishness in the domestic growth, slow recovery in the global economy and the continuing uncertainty in the global market leading to lower International Journal of Global Sustainability ISSN 1937-7924 2018 exports and imports are one of the main reasons for the low earning capacity of banks along with these reasons RBI's new rules to make higher provisioning for substandard assets also affected the earning capacity of all the three banks. Based on the evaluations all the three commercial banks should improve its earning capacity and the liquidity position to perform efficiently and effectively.