Stating that the confidence on the banking system would erode if banks failed to act fairly, the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (SCDRC) has ordered a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to a customer of a nationalized bank from whose account a huge sum was debited without intimation.
The case pertains to one S Vasudharini, a former TNEB employee, who had maintained an account with the West Mambalam branch of Canara Bank since 2002. In October 2006, she made a deposit of Rs 1 lakh under the Kamadhenu Deposit Scheme, which is a fixed deposit plan, by making a payment of Rs 50,000 by cash and the other half by way of cheque, which was also realised.
A year later, upon maturity of the deposit, she was paid a total sum of Rs 1,07,187, which included the accrued interest for the one-year deposit. The entire transaction was subsequently discharged.
However, to her shock and dismay, almost three years after the transaction, the bank in 2009 unilaterally debited an amount of Rs 61,383, comprising the principal and interest, from her account stating that there was no entry in the ledgers for the cash transaction of Rs 50,000 she made in 2006. This was done without even seeking a clarification from the customer.
After she failed to get a remedy from the District Consumer Forum, which rejected her case for want of proper records, she approached the State Commission with the current plea.
Replying to the application, the bank maintained that its contemporaneous records did not reflect the receipt of cash. Under such a circumstance, unless the customer produced relevant receipts, it had to be presumed that the payment was not made.
Passing orders, the bench, comprising of President Justice R Regupathi and Judicial Member A K Annamalai, slammed the nationalised bank for utter negligence and deficiency of service.
Though the fixed deposit has been discharged in 2007 itself, the bank, almost three years later, had “an audacity” to recover such a huge sum claiming non-entry of transaction. The reply was also negative when specific questions were posed about action of officials in the current case.
“We can safely conclude...some officials, who were handling cash transactions during the relevant period, would have failed to make an entry and committed misappropriation,” the bench said in a strongly-worded judgement.
Therefore, observing that the banking system functioned based on trust, the bench ordered the immediate return of the debited amount to the customer with an interest of 9 per cent. The bank was also asked to pay a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to the customer for causing mental agony.