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STATE CONSUMER DISPUTES REDRESSAL COMMISSION,

U.T., CHANDIGARH

[ADDITIONAL BENCH]

Appeal No. : 248 of 2024

Date of Institution : 10.07.2024

Date of Decision : 30.12.2025

Sh. Rohit Kumar s/o Lt. Sh. Basant Lal R/o House No.181/2, Sector 41-A,

Chandigarh.

…Appellant/Complainant

VERSUS

The Branch Manager, State Bank of India, NRI Branch Chandigarh, 111-

113, Sector 17-B, Chandigarh.

….Respondent/Opposite Party

BEFORE: JUSTICE RAJ SHEKHAR ATTRI, PRESIDENT

MRS. PADMA PANDEY, MEMBER

ARGUED BY :-

Sh. Mukul Khatri, Advocate for the appellant

Sh. Sumit Narang, Advocate for the respondent.

PER PADMA PANDEY, MEMBER

The instant appeal has been filed by the complainant – Sh.

Rohit Kumar (appellant herein) against dismissal of his consumer complaint

bearing No.38 of 2021 by District Consumer Disputes Redressal

Commission-I, U.T., Chandigarh (referred to as the 'District Commission')

vide order dated 25.01.2024.

2] The case of the appellant/complainant before the District

Commission was that he is having a saving bank account in the

respondent/opposite party - bank at NRI Branch, Chandigarh, since a long

time and is residing at Australia and used to visit India whenever required.

He had issued cheque No.975201 for Rs.7.00 lakh, which was presented

before the respondent - NRI Branch on 27.03.2019. However, before clearing

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the said cheque, no alert message was sent to him on his mobile as required

under RBI instructions. Despite this, the respondent - bank cleared the

cheque of Rs.7.00 lakhs and debited his account without following the rules

regarding alert messages, which was totally against law and amounted to

deficiency in service. It was further his case that due to negligence of the

respondent - bank, he suffered a loss of Rs.7.00 lakhs. The appellant -

complainant sent a legal notice dated 3.6.2020 and a reminder on

5.10.2020 but no reply was given by the respondent bank, resulting into

filing of a consumer complaint before the District Commission.

3] On the other hand, the respondent – opposite party contested

the complaint by filing its written reply stating that the complainant failed to

mention the time, phone number or any request reference number of the

alleged stop payment request, showing that after an unendurable span of

time, he filed a false and frivolous complaint to extract money from the

respondent – opposite party. It was further stated that the cheque was duly

issued by the appellant - complainant with his own wish and was rightly

cleared by the bank and that the appellant - complainant intentionally did

not mention his permanent address of Australia along with his present

address. Rest of the averments and allegations were denied being wrong.

4] The appellant/complainant filed rejoinder before the District

Commission reiterating the averments made in his complaint and

repudiating those as stated in the reply of the respondent/opposite party.

5] Parties also led evidence by way of affidavits and documents in

support of their respective cases.

6] After hearing the parties and going through the record, the

District Commission dismissed the consumer complaint as stated above.

7] Order dated 25.01.2024 has been assailed by the

appellant/complainant on the ground that the District Commission failed to

appreciate that the act of the respondent is wrong and illegal, due to which

the appellant suffered mental shock, pain, agony, harassment and

humiliation and is entitled to compensation on account of grave deficiency

in service. It has further been stated that District Commission also failed to

consider the object of the Act, which is a benevolent legislation enacted to

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protect the interests of consumers and whose provisions ought to be

interpreted rationally to achieve its objectives as well as the observations of

the Hon’ble Apex Court in Lucknow Development Authority vs. M.K. Gupta,

1994 (1) CCC 278 (NS) : 1994 (1) SCC 243 holding that the Act was enacted

to protect consumers, promote social welfare, remove the helplessness of

consumers against powerful bodi