A tangled web of fraud

Pushpa Girimaji

Last fortnight, I suddenly found an unauthorised and illegal withdrawal of Rs 60,000 from my account through net banking. But despite several complaints, the bank has failed to credit the amount to my account and is arguing that I have withdrawn the money. But the truth is, I have never applied for net banking nor have I ever used that facility! What should I do?

Please lodge a complaint with the economic offences wing of the local police — they will be able to nab the culprit. As far as the bank is concerned, write a formal letter, pointing out that since you have never applied for net banking nor taken any password for such transaction, it is obviously a case of fraud, committed in connivance with one or two bank employees. So the bank would do well to immediately return your money with interest and also investigate into the fraud, inform you of the action taken against the culprits and the steps taken to prevent recurrence. If the bank does not respond positively, you can seek the intervention of the banking ombudsman or the consumer court. You have a strong case and you need not worry about it.

Can you quote for my benefit, a similar case, if any, decided by the consumer court?

There was a case very similar to yours decided by the apex consumer court last year. In this case too, the customer had never applied for net banking, yet the bank was unwilling to accept that Rs 1.6 lakh had been fraudulently withdrawn from the complainant’s account and refund the amount to the customer, forcing him to approach the consumer court for help (HDFC Bank Ltd Vs Swapan Kumar Joardan, RP No 2084 of 2013, decided on November 17, 2015).

The case dates back to April 2006, when Rs 1.6 lakh was fraudulently transferred from the savings bank account of the complainant, Swapan Kumar Joardar, to the account of another customer of the bank, Tikeram Singh, through net banking transaction. When the bank refused to act on Joardar’s complaint, he filed a complaint before the consumer court at the district level, seeking justice. However, much to his disappointment, the consumer court accepted the argument of the bank that since the net transaction had taken place using the password known only to the customer, the bank cannot be held accountable. The court paid no attention to his plea that the money had been siphoned off to the account of a person, who was a security guard at the bank earlier, in collusion with a bank employee. 

The consumer court at the state level, the Goa State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, however, went into the case in detail and found that the bank had acted on an application for net banking facilities that had a forged signature of the complainant. Pointing out that the fraud could not have taken place if the bank manager had shown due diligence, the state commission directed the bank to refund Rs 1.6 lakh to the customer, along with 9 per cent interest calculated from April 2006 and also pay a compensation of Rs 1 lakh, besides Rs 10,000, towards the cost of filing the complaint and the appeal.

Instead of accepting its mistake and honouring the verdict of the state commission, the bank filed a revision petition before the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission. While dismissing the bank’s petition and upholding the verdict of the lower consumer court, the apex consumer court pointed out that the signature of the complainant in the account-opening form did not match the signature on the application seeking net banking facility, thereby clearly showing that the application had not been signed by the complainant at all. And despite that the branch manager had not even bothered to contact the customer to check whether the letter had indeed been sent by him. This was sheer negligence on the part of the bank and it has to take responsibility for the consequences, the national commission said. 

You can quote this case in your application before the consumer court. You can also find the entire judgement on the website of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissin-consumercom.nic.in