HDFC Bank Ltd vs Nilesh Bhala

Deepa Sharma, Presiding Memebr

The present Appeal has been filed against the order dated 12.12.2014 in complaint no.22/2013 whereby the complaint was allowed.

Briefly put, the facts are that the respondent / complainant is a Non Resident Indian as he was a resident of Johannesburg, South Africa and was having a saving account with the Appellant Bank since the year 2005 and customer verification code was also issued.  He received a statement of account dated 01.12.2010 for the month of October 2010 and he noticed that 26,000 $ i.e.Rs. 11,70,520/- at the rate of 42.02 was withdrawn from the said account on 04.10.2010 and for that Rs.1000/- was also charged towards service charges.  He had taken up the issue with the Appellant and informed that he had never issued any direction relating to the said account and had not withdrawn the said amount.  He also received certain documents from Overseas Bank Thailand and then he learnt that money had been transferred after opening an account on the basis of false documents. He made a complaint to the Ombudsman.  Ombudsman in its verdict held the bank liable.  However, in Appeal, the Appellant Authority Reserve Bank of India vide its order dated 19.03.2012 opined that since the matter requires detailed scrutiny and relates to legal dispute, set aside the order of the Ombudsman.  Thereafter, a complaint was filed by the complainant claiming refund of the amount along with other benefits @ 12% p.a.

An application for condonation of delay was also filed along with the complaint.  The said application was allowed by the State Commission vide its order dated 22.05.2013.

In the written statement, the Appellant i.e. the opposite party before the State Commission ( hereinafter referred to as the Bank) did not dispute the facts regarding holding of account of the complainant.  It is stated that they received a courier with documents and on proper  identification and comparison of the signatures and after finding papers in order, the amount was transferred in the account of complainant in Bangkok and was duly acknowledged by the Bangkok Bank. It was alleged that there was no deficiency on the part of the Bank.  It is also submitted that they had appointed handwriting expert Renuka Kumar who had duly compared the vouchers with the other admitted signatures of the complainant and it was found that signatures matched with the complainant’s on the documents on which the Bank had acted and transferred the money.

The parties led their evidence before the State Commission. The State Commission after hearing the arguments of the counsel for the parties and perusing the case laws relied upon by the parties had given its findings and found the Bank guilty of deficiency in service.

It is argued on behalf of the Bank that they had acted bonafidely and only after comparing the signatures of the complainant, they had transferred the money to the Bank account at Bangkok.  It is submitted that dispute pertains to the forgery and fabrication of the documents which raises criminal liability and, therefore, the matter should have been filed under criminal law.  It was also contended that the complaint is not maintainable because of the non joinder of the necessary parties as the Bank of Bangkok Kasiknor has not been impleaded.  It is further contended that the transaction was from Bank account to Bank account and if any lapse had been committed, the same had been committed by Kasiknor Bank and not by the Appellant.  It is also submitted that vide press release dated 10.01.2012 RBI specifically mentioned that it does not take any responsibility for recovering money remitted in fraudulent transactions and complaint needs to be filed before the Nodal Officer and not in Consumer Court.

It is argued on behalf of the respondent that Bank had transferred the money without verification and also without talking to him and verifying from him and since he was also having customer verification code, no verification had been done from him and the Bank  had acted negligently and carelessly and it amounted to deficiency in service.  It is submitted that he has come before this Commission for the deficiency in service on the part of the Bank and had not sought any relief against those persons who had fabricated the documents.  Therefore, argument that criminal liability is involved in this matter has no merit

I  have heard the arguments and perused the relevant record.

The only dispute before this Commission is whether the Bank had transferred the money to the account in the Bangkok which was an unknown account and in which  account the complainant had never made any transaction, without proper verification and confirmation from the complainant who is the account holder and is an NRI and to whom the verification code had been issued.  The transaction had not been disputed. The only contention of the bank is that they had compared his signatures and released the money after proper identification of the signatures and after finding the papers in order  It is further contended that they had appointed an handwriting expert Renuka Kumar who had also found the signatures on those documents as that of complainant.  It is clear that Renuka Kumar had not been appointed with the permission of the Commission before whom the complaint was pending.  Also, the opinion of handwriting expert was not sought at the time of transaction.  It is also a fact that no verification before transfer of the said amount had been made from the complainant despite the fact that verification code was also issued.  The Ombudsman had also examined this issue in detail and the fact finding report also shows that during the relevant period, the account of the complainant was freezed and he was unable to access his account as his password was deactivated and it was activated only in December 2010 and it was then that he learnt of the disputed transaction.  The complainant has also pointed out that in the document on which the bank had acted, i.e. his passport number, address and cell phone were given which did not match with his passport, address and cell phone and yet the bank did not cross check the passport details of the complainant.  The complainant also argued that he had never ever undertaken paper based transaction with the Bank and had all over been doing online transaction and when the bank had received the request for paper transaction, it did not bother to verify the details of those papers. The findings of the State Commission are duly supported by the documents on record and in the written submissions and also during the oral arguments, the Bank has failed to establish any evidence which was crucial for the decision of this case and which had not been taken into consideration by the State Commission or the State  Commission had relied on evidence or fact which was not part of the record.

I found no perversity, illegality or infirmity in the impugned order.  The Appeal is dismissed.