BENGALURU: Syndicate Bank will have to pay damages caused to a customer whose housing loan was rejected by a financial firm on grounds of a poor credit score. “The bank has failed in discharging its duty of intimating the CIBIL. It has to be saddled with liability.
We deem it fit to award a sum of Rs 40,000 as compensation,” said the 3rd Additional Bangalore Urban District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum. The complainant is PN Raghavendra Rao, a resident of Udayanagar.
The forum, comprising president DR Venkatasudarshan and members MB Seena and L Mamatha, said the bank’s conduct is a reflection of poor treatment of customers. “We award Rs 5,000 for litigation costs,” it said.
The Palace Guttahalli branch of Syndicate Bank granted a loan of Rs 1.50 lakh to Rao in September 2014 and he repaid the amount in November 2015. He approached DHFL in 2016 for a Rs 12 lakh loan, but it was rejected as his CIBIL report indicated he had dues of Rs 1,41,357.
He then approached the bank in September 2016, and it said the loan account had been closed on November 27, 2015, and the CIBIL entry rectified. The forum said, “The eagerness banks show in loan recovery is not shown in safeguarding customers’ interests.”