IMPORTANT POINT
Credit Card holder is bound to timely clear of amount specified in statement of accounts.

Mr. R. Lakshminarasimha Rao, Member—The unsuccessful complainant is the appellant.

2. The factual matrix leading to filing of the appeal are that the complainant is a credit card holder and was said to have been regular in clearing the bills before the schedule time mentioned in the statement of the bill sent by the opposite party every month. The complainant stated to have not received any statements from the opposite party, he had purportedly sent several reminders but failed to receive any response from the opposite parties. The complainant submitted that he did not use his card for the past one year, yet he was receiving monthly statements for the bill amount with interest, late fee and services showing the balance of Rs. 35,844 to be payable by him.

3. The opposite parties resisted the complaint contending that the complainant was not regular in making payment of the bill amount. The bill will be raised by 8th of every month and the payment should be paid on or before 30th of every month. The complainant was in the habit of paying minimum amount and not the amount shown in the statements thus it led to levying of the outstanding balance amount.

4. The complainant has filed his affidavit and the documents Exs. A1 to A16. On behalf of the opposite parties, M. Kiran Babu, employee of the opposite party No.1 bank has filed his affidavit but no documents.

5. The District Forum has dismissed the complaint on the premise that the opposite parties had charged penal interest and other charges on account of the complainant’s failure to clear of the amount specified in the statement of account.

6. Feeling aggrieved by the order of the District Forum, the complainant has filed the appeal contending that the opposite parties had not issued the statement of account regularly and collected service tax separately on each and every item of the statement of account and that the opposite party had not taken into consideration of the amount paid towards EMI alongwith interest.

7. The points for consideration are:

(1) Whether the complainant is entitled to the amount of Rs. 49,598? (2) To what relief?

Point No.1

8. The complainant is the credit card holder with the credit card bearing No. 5176530018730005. The complainant had been using the credit card for about six years prior to the date of filing of the complaint. The contention of the complainant is that the opposite parties has not sent the statement of account regularly and thereby he was subjected to inconvenience. The opposite parties refuted the charge stating that the billing date of the complainant’s account is scheduled for 8th of every month and due date for the repayment is on or before 30th of every month. It was submitted that the opposite parties used to send periodic statements to the complainant every month. The credit card statements dated 9.8.2007, 8.9.2007, 9.10.2006, 9.11.2007, 8.12.2007 would show that the statement of account had been regularly sent to the complainant.

9. The contention of the complainant that the opposite party had delayed in sending the monthly statements and due to the delay in sending the statement of account, the amount under the cheque would be delayed to be realized has no force as every statement of account has provided for 3 modes of payments towards the card account. The amount can be paid through cheque or draft which can be dropped in the collection box at the opposite party No.1 bank branch or any of their ATM centers. Another mode of payment of the card amount is the payment through online through opposite party No.1 bank’s website and the third method of payment of the card account is through the savings bank account by giving written instructions to debit the payment from the account every month on payment due date. All these methods would unhesitatingly show that the payment made would be immediately taken into account by the opposite party No.1. branch.

10. The contention of the complainant that the opposite party by sending t