1. The appellant is before us to assail the order dated 13/10/2017 passed by District Commission Jammu in the consumer complaint number 250/DFJ.

2. For the sake of the convenience, the parties shall hereinafter be referred as per their respective positions before the Ld. District Commission.

3. Before we proceed further, it is deemed advantageous to discuss the background of the case as under:

a. The complainant was having a Savings Bank A/C (A/c No. 4574000100010679) with the O.P. Bank and was also provided with an ATM cum Debit Card by the bank. The complainant claims that he was expecting to some money in his account and he had visited the bank's ATM at Janipur on 23/10/2011 to check his balance.

Complainant claimed that no security guard was present there to regulate the entry and neither the CCTV was functioning and there was a huge rush in the ATM enclosure.

He claims that he had inserted his ATM Card into the machine to check his account balance but somehow the request was not processed. He further claims that during the process of retrieval of the card from the ATM machine, he was pushed by some persons present inside the ATM room and his ATM Card fell down and was picked by someone and handed over to him.

He further claims that on 25/10/2011 he went to another ATM at Ramgarh to withdraw some money, however, the PIN did not work and the proposed transaction was rejected by the ATM Machine. He claims to have approached the bank branch and was shocked to learn that an amount of Rs.1,71,800/- was misappropriated from his account through various transactions done through different ATMs between 23/10/2011 6.20 P.M. to 24/10/2011 6.31 A.M.

It is further alleged by him that whilst a total amount of Rs.50,000/- was withdrawn from his account, Rs.1,21,800/- was transferred to the Saving Bank A/Cs of some other persons having their accounts with the O.P. Bank in different parts of India. The details of the alleged fraudulent withdrawals/ transfers are as under:

A. Cash Withdrawals:

B. Transfers:

Complainant further claims that immediately upon noticing the unauthorized transactions in his account, not only did he immediately inform the O.P. Bank but also lodged an F.I.R. with the Police Station Janipur (2011 (F.I.R. No. 146 dt. 25/10/2011).

Complainant argues that an aggregate per day limit of Rs.15,000/- on cash withdrawals & Rs.25,000/- per day for use at Merchant Establishments (POS) respectively was applicable and since there is a clear breach of the said limits, the bank is clearly guilty of deficiency in service.

His other leg of the argument is that as far as the transfers to different accounts is concerned, all the accounts were clearly identified and all the account holders but for one account holder namely Sh. Gurdeep Singh had withdrawn the amount from their accounts by the time the said misappropriation came to the notice of the complainant.

It is further claimed by the complainant that an amount of Rs.20,052/- was still lying in the Account of Sh. Gurdeep Singh on 25/10/2011 & the S.H.O. Police Station, Janipur through a fax on the same day requested the concerned Branch Manager of the O.P. Bank branch at Tarantaran to freeze the account but the ba