West Bengal

Bankura

CC/73/2017

Smt. Mina Ganguly - Complainant(s)

Versus

Branch Manager State Bank of India - Opp.Party(s)

Durgaprasad Sarkar

02 Feb 2023

ORDER

IN    THE   DISTRICT   CONSUMER   DISPUTES   REDRESSAL COMMISSION BANKURA

Consumer  Complaint  No. 73/2017

Date of Filing : 10.11.2017

Before:

1. Samiran Dutta                              Ld. President.      

2. Rina Mukherjee                          Ld. Member. 

3. Siddhartha Sankar Bhui            Ld. Member.

For the Complainant: Ld. Advocate Durgaprasad Sarkar

For the O.P. Ld. Advocate Asim Kumar Mondal

Complainant                                                                                                          

Smt. Mina Ganguly, W/O Arup Ganguly, at Uttar Pranabananda Pally, Kenduadihi, Bankura

Opposite Party  

Branch Manager, SBI, Bankura

FINAL ORDER / JUDGEMENT                                                                                                                                                           

Order No.37

Dated:02-02-2023

Both parties file hazira through Advocate.

The case is fixed for argument.

Hearing argument from both sides the Commission proceeds to dispose of the case as hereunder: -

The Complainant’s case is that she is a bona fide customer under the O.P. Bank bearing S.B. No.31284488865 and Debit Card has been issued in her favour accordingly. But during the period from 02-08-2017 to 05-09-2017 a huge amount of Rs.1,40,000/- has been debited from her aforesaid Account on different times without any SMS alert. Thereafter G.D.E. No. 508, dated: 11-09-2017 was lodged with Bankura P.S. in the matter and legal notice was served upon the O.P. on 23-10-2017 for necessary remedial measures. Without getting any relief the Complainant has approached this Commission for appropriate relief.

The O.P. contested the case by filing written version contending inter alia that all the transactions were operated by swiping ATM Debit Card at the places of transactions other than ATM machine maintained by the Banking authority. Their further contention is that according to the RBI guidelines the complainant is not entitled to get refund of the lost money as those were all fraudulent transactions according to the Cyber Crime report submitted to the Bank authority.

                                                                                                                                                                                      Contd………p/2

Page: 2

Having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case, contentions, submission of documents on both sides it reveals that the claimed money has been withdrawn through POS transactions on different occasions during the period from 02-08-2017 to 05-09-2017 which could not be detected in normal course of business of the Bank as those are of fraudulent transactions committed by fraudsters.                   Non-receipt of SMS alert is indication of such fraudulent transactions.

But according to the Banking guidelines the affected person may get refund of the lost money subject to the conditions that the customer must report to the concerned Bank three days from the date of such fraudulent transactions where entire amount is refunded to the Account of the customer and if it is reported within four or seven days the customer may get refund of Rs. 5,000/- up to Rs.25,000/- and after seven days the Bank has no authority to refund money in such un-authorized  transactions. In this case GDE was lodged on 11-09-2017 i.e. with Bankura P.S. but the Advocate’s Notice dated: 01-10-2017 was received by the O.P./Bank on  24-10-2017 which is long beyond the RBI guidelines.

Ld. Advocate appearing for the O.P. has produced the RBI guidelines and the Cyber crime report to justify the dismissal of the case mainly on the ground of non-reporting of the matter to the Bank authority within the stipulated period.

Ld. Advocate appearing for the complainant however impressed upon the Commission that the O.P. Bank ought to have taken due care and service to the customer to prevent such fraudulent transactions by giving advance alert message but as stated above customer cannot get any alert message for such transaction and the Bank’s liability to refund money in such fraudulent transactions is limited to the time period as per RBI guidelines referred to above.

The Commission cannot pass any order to compensate the loss of the Complainant by bypassing the RBI guidelines as no fault is found with the Bank authority for such fraudulent transactions for no fault of the Complainant.

Hence it is ordered……

That the case is dismissed on contest against the O.P. without any cost.

Both parties be supplied copy of this Order free of cost.

____________________                   _________________           _________________

HON’BLE   PRESIDENT           HON’BLE MEMBER       HON’BLE MEMBER