SC sets aside National Commission's order on goof up by bank

The Supreme Court on Friday set aside an order by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission for making "contradictory as well as incredulous and fanciful suppositions" in a case related to wrong withdrawal of money from an account at State Bank of India.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Bela M Trivedi held that the Commission's decision to call for a report from the bank's officer on its own was absolutely unwarranted.

The top court also pointed out the National Commission itself had exceeded its revisional jurisdiction by calling for the report from the respondent bank and solely relying upon such report, had come to the conclusion that the two fora below had erred in not undertaking the requisite in-depth appraisal of the case.

Appellant Sunil Kumar Maity had found that a sum of Rs three lakh, deposited by him through a cheque, has been withdrawn from his account. It was later discovered that the bank had given him the account number of another person by name of Sunil Maity, resulting in the goof up.

As the bank failed to redress his grievance, he approached the district consumer forum which allowed his complaint. The West Bengal State Commission also held that the bank should own up the "great blunder" committed by crediting the amount of the cheque to the account of Sunil Maity.

The National Commission, however, allowed a revision petition by the bank and dismissed the complaint saying the complainant can approach the competent civil court under the law.

On an appeal by Maity, the top court pointed out that the appellant did not know the second respondent (Sunil Maity) and would not have known his account number unless given to him by a bank officer.

"There was no way that the appellant would have known that the second respondent namely Sunil Maity had an account in the same branch. No sane person would deposit cash or cheque meant to be deposited in his account in an account number belonging to another person with a similar name," the bench said.

On the other hand, the bank should have been extra cautious given the fact that accounts of the appellant, Sunil Kumar Maity, and the second respondent, Sunil Maity, were with the same bank branch. What is rather surprising is that the National Commission for setting aside the findings and conclusion recorded by the District and State Forum, simply reproduced the report by one of the officers of the party in litigation with the appellant, the court added.

The top court restored the order by the State Commission, saying the order passed by the National Commission solely relying upon the suo-moto report called for from the respondent bank during the pendency of the revision application, was "highly erroneous, deserved to be set aside".

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