Court dismisses plea alleging threats calls from ICICI

In a relief to ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company, a Delhi court has dismissed a woman's plea accusing one of its top officials of calling her up and threatening her to withdraw her complaint against the firm from a consumer forum.

Civil Judge Swati Katiyar dismissed north Delhi resident Satinder Kaur's plea against the insurance firm's associate vice president, saying she failed to back it up with any evidence.
"Apart from oral allegations levelled by the plaintiff, there is no evidence whatsoever on record to prove the same. Accordingly, the plaintiff has failed to discharge the onus placed upon her. Resultantly, the issues are decided against the plaintiff," the court said.

The woman had moved the court alleging that the firm's top executive's call caused immense harassment and "mental agony" to her and sought compensation of Rs 2 lakh from the firm for causing the "serious shock" to her.

Satinder had said she was a "semi illiterate" housewife and had been induced by an employee of ICICI's insurance arm to invest in its pension scheme and that she had paid Rs 1.2 lakh for it in two instalments by March 2003.

She had contended that she was told by the ICICI official that she could withdraw her money whenever she wished to terminate the policy and that she would still be given a minimum interest of 8 per cent per annum but in 2006, when she wished to withdraw her money, Rs 4,566 was deducted from the amount she had invested.

She had claimed that after she filed a complaint before a Delhi District Consumer Redressal Forum, the then associate vice president of the company advanced threats to her thrice between October 2006 and March 2007, through phone calls, asking her to "withdraw the complaint or else to face dire consequences".