FM had admitted to 20 bank frauds

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 11

Amidst the debate over connecting the Aadhaar numbers with bank accounts and cellphones, the Finance Ministry has admitted to receiving 20 complaints of bank fraud connected with the same since 2015. The frauds amounted to a total of Rs 7.65 lakh.

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The admission came on the floor of the Rajya Sabha on January 2 in response to a question put before Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley by Maharashtra MP Husain Dalwai. The RS member had sought details of complaints of bank fraud where money had been siphoned in the name of linking Aadhaar with PAN/bank account/SIM card since 2015 and the directives issued to banks to deal with such cases. He had also asked if a grievance redress mechanism had been put in place and the reasons for making the Aadhaar linkage mandatory.

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In its reply, the Finance Department submitted that it had received 20 complaints of bank fraud involving Rs 7.65 lakh connected with linking Aadhaar with bank accounts since 2015.

“However, for customer protection, zero liability of a customer is assured under RBI directives for all cases of third-party breach, where the deficiency lies neither with the bank nor the customer, and the customer notifies the bank within three working days of receiving the communication regarding the unauthorised transaction.

"The bank is liable to credit the amount to the account within 10 working days," the Finance Minister said in the House. He added that banks had a grievance redress policy and out of the 1.26 lakh overall grievances, 1.20 lakh had been disposed of between January 1 and December 28, 2017.

The Finance Minister, however, insisted that it was mandatory to obtain Aadhaar for linking all 

bank accounts, insurance, pension, mutual funds and SIM cards.