IMPORTANT POINT
Banking services – Deficiency in service – Depriving senior citizen of lawful money for about five years.

JUDGMENT

Sangita Dhingra Sehgal, President.—The facts of the case as per the District Commission record are:—

“…facts stated by the complainant in the complaint are that she is a senior citizen and is maintaining her bank account with OP for last 16 years or so and on 28.07.2018 four fraudulent & unauthorized transactions of Rs. 10,000 each, totaling Rs. 40,000/- were carried out from her bank account for which complainant lodged the complaint with the bank through customer care helpline vide ticket no.4622860374, 4622860554, 4622860290 and even Police Complaint Vide No. DD24B dated 02.08.2018 was lodged & a copy thereof was given to the Branch Manager of OP and all the SOPs were followed by the complainant. A written complaint was also given to Branch Manager but despite constantly following up, the amount was not refunded in the complainant’s account and as such complainant lodged a complaint with Centralized Public Grievance Redressal Monitoring System for delay in redressing the complaint but of no result & ultimately claim was rejected and aggrieved from that, complainant approached and appealed to Directorate of Public & Grievances and after the delay of almost 2 years even the same was rejected for non-availability of CCTV footage.

On 06.04.2021 the complaint was lodged with Department of Financial Services and after certain communications and then citing circular for delay in lodging the complaint together with ATR but the same was also dismissed and ultimately complainant sent legal notice on 15.01.2022 which was also not complied with and as such she has filed the present complaint with the prayer that OP be directed to refund Rs. 40,000/- & to pay compensation of Rs. 1,00,000/- and legal expenses of Rs. 20,000/-. The connecting documents have also been filed by the complainant.”

2. The District Commission after taking into consideration the material available on record passed the judgment dated 13.04.2023, whereby it held as under:—

“As far as the case is bad in mis-joinder and non-joinder of parties is concerned there appears to be force in that contention. There is no privity of content in between the complainant & the Canara Bank. Complainant is not at all a consumer of Canara Bank nor Canara Bank can be said to be service provider of the complainant & even otherwise, initially it was not known to the complainant as to where from the said alleged fraudulent, if it at all is fraudulent transaction, was done. No doubt when the complainant filed various complaint to various authorities, she became aware that the alleged fraudulent transaction has been done from Canara Bank and she could have made Canara Bank as a party as by the time the complainant filed the complaint she was well aware that disputed transactions have taken placed from some ATM of Canara Bank Branch, but even that could not make the Canara Bank as service provider to the complainant. Therefore it cannot be held that Canara Bank is/was a necessary party in the proceedings & therefore this contention of the OP is not having any force.

Coming to the contention of OP w.r.t. RBI circular or w.r.t. various citations where a fraudulent transaction has taken placed and this Commission as well as Hon’ble SCDRC as well as Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in various judgments have held that circular of RBI is quite valid and in case the transaction has been proved as fraudulent transaction, or unauthorized transaction, then the complainant has to be compensated by the Bank as the same is deficiency in the service by bank, who is service provider to the consumer and is also the custodian of the amount of the complainant, kept in her bank/account.

The Commission is also of the opinion that where from the transaction has taken place or what privity, one bank has with another bank is not the concern of the complainant. Complainant cannot be anticipated of having knowledge as to what is the internal arrangements of one bank with another bank w.r.t. functio