IMPORTANT POINT
Bank cannot penalize its customers for its own lethargy.

Maj. Gen. (Retd.) S. P. Kapoor, Member—This is an appeal against the order of District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum-II, U.T., Chandigarh (for short hereinafter to be referred as District Forum) dated 21.10.2008 passed in complaint case No.1242 of 2008, Sh. Gunjan Mehta v. Citi Bank and others.

2. Briefly stated the case of the complainant is that he had been the holder of Citi Bank Credit Card No.5425 5695 7273 3004 and had very rarely used the facility of this card. The complainant, as per him, used to clear the bills on time but on occasions when he found the bill to be on higher side, on his demand for the details of the charges, OP on one pretext or the other chose not to provide such details or given slips or customer signed copies of the transaction bills. The complainant was contacted by OP No.4 on telephone and a demand for an amount of Rs. 2,00,000 had been raised as outstanding amount to be paid by him. The complainant demanded from the OP any previous official correspondence in this regard and also disclosed his e-mail address to OP No. 4. Consequently, he received a letter dated 18.9.2008 through e-mail demanding an amount of Rs. 14,000. It was next, averred that the complainant could not understand the crux of the matter and had also not received any communication from the Bank since the year 2000 when his credit card was actually surrendered and the account had been closed. It has also been alleged by the complainant that one Sh. Angad Chohan OP No.3 who is a senior official of the OP Bank used filthy and abusive language and had threatened him, consequent to which, he made a complaint with the Police Authorities on 13.10.2008. Alleging the action and conduct of OPs as deficiency in service on their part, the complainant had filed this complaint.

3. The version of OPs, on the other hand, is that the complainant had been using his credit card quite frequently and had accepted the same after fully understanding and accepting the terms and conditions for the issue of the credit card. It has further been averred that the complainant was under a contractual obligation to clear the dues against the card, which at that time, stood at Rs.4,08,061. It has further been stated that the complainant never made any payment since 13.9.2000 and thus, he was charged late payment, interest, service charges etc. as per the terms and conditions of the card and subsequently, the credit card of the complainant was closed on 2.4.2001 for non payment of dues. The complainant had been offered a one time settlement of Rs.14,000 on 18.9.2008, which was valid up to 23.9.2008 but the complainant declined the said offer and thus, the amount remains due towards him.

4. The learned District Forum, in its analysis of the complaint, observed that the complainant had asked the OPs to cancel the card in the year but the same was done only on 12.4.2001 and since this date, there was no correspondence between the complainant and the OPs but the OPs suddenly in the year 2008 started demanding a sum of Rs. 2,00,000 from the complainant as the outstanding amount against his credit card account, which was mostly towards late payment charges, interest charges and service charges etc because frequently, there had been no real transaction on this credit card after 2001. It has also been observed that the last payment of Rs.3,000 was made to the OPs on 13.9.2000 and on that date, outstanding balance in the account of the complainant also stood at Rs.3,000. The learned District Forum has further gone on to record that the total outstanding amount of Rs.4,08,061.812Ps basically comprises the interest charges, late payment charges and service tax etc and the OPs had only been making book entries in their record from time to time without supplying any counter slips or customer signed transactions bills to the complainant. It has also been recorded by the learned District Forum that since the OPs had failed to produce any document whatsoever for claimi