Sri Utpal Kumar Bhattacharya, Member

This Appeal u/s 15 of the C.P Act, 1986 has been filed by the Appellant/Complainant being aggrieved with the judgment and order passed by the Ld. District Forum, South 24 Parganas in Complaint Case No. 467/2015.

The brief fact of the case was that the spinster sister of the Appellant/Complainant died intestate leaving behind 6 FDs and one Savings Bank Account with Union Bank of India, Bakrahat Branch. The Appellant/Complainant, after observing a long procedural formalitiy, obtained from the competent authority, a succession certificate in respect of his said deceased spinster sister wherein the name of the Appellant/Complainant was figuring in as one of the legal heirs of the deceased.

The Appellant/Complainant, thereafter, claimed from the Respondent/OP Bank, his share in respect of the subject Fixed Deposit and Savings Bank Account in terms of the legal heir certificate of the deceased. Four of the six FDs being already disbursed to the nominees of the deceased, the Respondent/OP Bank preferred to remain silent to the prayer without taking any action.

The Respondent/Complainant, out of suspicion, filed a complaint to the vigilance officer and got the paper relating to the alleged nomination verified by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory. The report submitted by the said organization revealed that there were dissimilarities in the signatures of the deceased in specimen signature card and the nomination card. No positive response being found forthcoming, the Appellant/Complainant had filed the Complaint Case before the Ld. District Forum. The judgment and order passed by the Ld. District Forum in the Complaint Case was put under challenge in the instant Appeal.

Heard the Appeal ex parte against the Respondent/OP.

The Appellant/Complainant, appearing in person, submitted, describing in short the issue in the same lines narrated in the complaint, how the Ld. District Forum, passing the impugned order, disregarded his legitimate claim in spite of his being one of the legal heirs of his deceased spinster sister. He went on to submit that the Ld. District Forum in the Complaint Case filed before it under Nos. CC/17 and CC/18, both of the year 2011, by some Subhankar Kar and Satyajit Kar, two sons of his other sister, delivered a judgment dated 18.10.2012 towards payment of the matured amount of the FDs to the said two Complainants as both of them were recorded as nominees of the deceased with cost and compensation.

As he continued, he preferred a petition before the Ld. District Forum praying for being a party to that case which was denied by the Ld. District Forum. It was, as submitted, a proven case of forgery committed by the petitioners in the Complaint Cases CC/17 and CC/18 of 2011 as the signatures of the deceased in the nomination card was marked with dissimilarities as pointed out in the report of the Central Forensic Laboratory on an enquiry conducted at the instance of the vigilance officer after being moved him.

As submitted, the Respondent/OP Bank, in violation of the instruction given to it, sent for Forensic examination only four samples out of six. It also did not unveil the Forensic report in spite of a RTI query raised by him for the report to be brought out.

Drawing the notice to running page Nos. 60 to 75, being the nomination forms, the Appellant/Complainant pointed out that there were defects in the nomination. He pointed out that the minor nephew of the deceased was nominated without the name and signature of the guardian on his behalf at the space provided in the nomination form. What was more peculiar, as he continued, the nephew was recorded as son-in-law of the spinster deceased. He suspected that the Bank was in connivance with the Complainant in CC Nos. 17 and 18 of 2011.

With the above submission, the Appellant/Complainant prayed for the Appeal to be allowed setting aside the impugned judgment and order.

Perused the papers on record and considered submissions of the Appellant/Complainant.

It appeared on perusal of the same that the cases under Nos. CC/17/2011 and CC/18/2011 were filed on the same issue before the Ld. District Forum earlier. Those two cases were disposed of in favour of their Complainants for refund with cost and compensation. The judgment and order passed by the Ld. District Forum was affirmed by this Commission in Appeals Challenging the said order in which, as recorded in the impugned order, the Appellant/Complainant of the instant Appeal was a party.

In the given circumstances, I am of the view that the Forum, would have exceeded its authority had he entertained the complaint on the same issue for the second time as the said act on its part would have attracted the provision of res judicata.

Similar was the position of this Commission as the Appeal against the order of the Ld. District Forum was once decided with affirmation of the impugned order. What was more, the judgment and order revealed that the Respondent/OP Bank had already complied with the directions passed upon them by the Ld. District Forum in the Complaint Cases Nos. CC/17/2011 and CC/18/2011 consequent upon the same was affirmed by this Commission in the Appeal cases. Above being the facts and circumstances, I am of the considered view that the Ld. District Forum had committed no mistake while passing the impugned order which did not deserve any intervention from this end.

Hence,

Ordered

that the Appeal be and same stands dismissed. Impugned judgment and order stands affirmed. No order as to costs.