West Bengal

Bankura

CC/21/2017

Sri Nanda Dulal Goswami - Complainant(s)

Versus

The Branch Manager - Opp.Party(s)

Atanu Dey

08 Feb 2023

ORDER

     IN    THE   DISTRICT   CONSUMER   DISPUTES   REDRESSAL COMMISSION BANKURA

Consumer  Complaint  No. 21/2017

Date of Filing : 10.03.2017

Before:

1. Samiran Dutta                              Ld. President.      

2. Rina Mukherjee                          Ld. Member. 

3. Siddhartha Sankar Bhui            Ld. Member.

For the Complainant: Self

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

Complainant                                                                                                          

Sri Nandadulal Goswami, Pirraboni, Beliatore, Bankura                                                                                                                                                  

Opposite Party  

Branch Manager, State Bank of India, Beliatore Br., Bankura

FINAL ORDER / JUDGEMENT                                                                                                                                                           

Order No.31

Dated:08-02-2023

The case is fixed for argument.

No step is taken by the Complainant.

Hazira is filed on behalf of the O.P. through Advocate who files written argument.

In absence of the Complainant the Commission proceeds to dispose of the case on merit as hereunder: -

The Complainant’s case is that he is a bona fide customer under the O.P. Bank bearing S.B. No.33137146214 and Debit Card has been issued in his favour accordingly. But on 07-12-2016 a huge amount of Rs.35,401/- has been debited from his aforesaid Account on different times without any SMS alert. Thereafter the complaint was lodged with Beliatore P.S. on 21-012-2016 by G.D.E. No. 745, dated: 21-12-2016. But 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.

                                                                                                                                                                               Contd………p/2

Page: 2

Having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case, contentions, submission of documents it reveals that the claimed money has been withdrawn through POS transactions on 07-12-2016 which could not be detected in normal course of business of the Bank as this is 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 the transaction in question took place on 07-12-2016 but GDE was lodged on 21-12-2016 i.e. with Beliatore P.S. and also O.P./Bank was contacted  on 21-12-2016  which is long beyond the RBI guidelines.

Ld. Advocate appearing for the O.P. has produced the RBI guidelines 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  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