Banks are liable for deficiency in service if they facilitate unauthorized withdrawals by ignoring customer warnings, failing to verify the authenticity of email instructions, and releasing Fixed Deposit funds without the surrender of physical receipts.

Order : (Per Hon’ble Sri K.Ranga Rao- Presiding Officer- Member - (Judicial).

1. This appeal is filed by the Appellant/Opposite party U/s.15 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 praying this State Commission to set aside the impugned order dt.19.12.2018 passed in CC. No. 632/2015 of the District Forum-II, Hyderabad, and consequently to allow the appeal as prayed for.

2. For the sake of convenience, the parties are referred to as arrayed in the complaint. The Appellant herein was opposite party and the Respondents were complainants in the CC. No. 632/2015 before the District Forum-II, Hyderabad.

3.The brief averments of complaint are as follows:-

The complainants are husband and wife and they are holding NRO Account bearing No.0872104000021641 and also linked FDRS (Fixed Deposit Receipts) bearing account No.0872111100000541, 0872111100000523 and 0872111100000532 with the opposite party bank and have been maintaining the said accounts since long time. Recently there was an email alert from the opposite party bank to the complainants with regard to Rs.200/- NEFT credit confirmation done by one Mr. Sri. Krishna Bera. Surprised by the said message, they had immediately communicated the opposite party bank vide their email dated 17-12-2014 stating that" We do not know who Sri Krishna Bera is or what is this unauthorized access to our account about and hope there is no mischief here". They had also requested the opposite party bank to initiate immediate investigation. Despite of the explicit disowning of the above transaction stating that the same is an unauthorized transaction and requesting them to initiate investigation on the same by the complainants smelling mischief there vide email dated 17-12-2014, the opposite party, to the utter surprise of the complainants had released a sum of Rs.10 Lakhs between 18-12-2014 and 22-12-2014, to some third person through unauthorized transactions bearing transaction No. IBKL141217510510 and RTGS UTR No. IBKL492014122200096192 from the NRO account of the complainant, wherein one fixed deposit of Rs.7.11,431/- was unauthorized and unilaterally closed and partial withdrawal was done from the second fixed deposit of Rs. 56,74,728/-, based on some unverified and fraudulent mails, ignoring the warning and caution of the complainants. In the above backdrop, even assuming for a moment. without admission, that the fraudster’s first email instruction for release of Rs.2 Lakhs is from the complainants the opposite party should have immediately examined and detected the genuineness or otherwise of the instructions by the fraudster as the account number given by the fraudster is only 15 digits (0872111110000453) as against the normal 16 digits, which itself should have alerted the opposite party’s officials. On the other hand, they had provided unsolicited leads about the correct NRE and NRO account details to the said fraudster and made the job of the said fraudster easy.

4. As per the statements of them, the balance in the NRO account of the complainant is meager (i.e., Rs.299) to accommodate the demand for Rs.2 Lakhs and as such, the opposite party should have in the normal course of functioning, declined the instructions of the said fraudster on the ground of insufficient funds and through it preemptively closed the whole cyber fraud. It is pertinent to mention that the contact number i.e.818-538-6631 provide