
The Consumer Commission has taken action against the Chief General Manager of Bank of Baroda for non-payment of a Fixed Deposit (FD). Surya Prakash, also known as Raju, a resident of Bahjoi, had invested Rs 1 lakh in an FD with Bank of Baroda to secure his daughter’s future.
When the FD matured, Surya Prakash visited the Bank of Baroda branch office in Bahjoi to receive the payment. However, he was informed by the branch manager that during the FD creation process, the bank had mistakenly failed to deduct Rs 1 lakh from his account. As a result, the payment of the FD and the interest on it could not be made. Dissatisfied with this response, Surya Prakash sought the assistance of consumer affairs advocate Luv Mohan Varshney, who helped him file a complaint with the District Consumer Commission.
A hearing was conducted regarding the complaint, and the Commission issued orders to recover Rs 10,000 each from the salaries of the branch manager and senior branch manager, directing them to pay this amount to the complainant. However, the salary deductions were not made from the salaries of the branch managers as expected. Consequently, the Chairman and members of the Commission have issued bailable warrants against the Chief General Manager of Bank of Baroda.
This action by the Consumer Commission highlights the importance of ensuring proper procedures and compliance in financial institutions to protect the rights and interests of consumers.
There are many queries in the matter
1.Whether one lakh debited in his account for making FD or not
2. If not debited what happened to this amount whether party has utilised it or not
3. In case if the amount is lying in his account for the intended FD term as per his FD application the forum should have awarded the differential interest only i e FD interest minus SB interest already credited for one lakh
4. For non performance of a financial action only the monetary loss can only be awarded and not any penal action on the Bank staff.
The chain start from dealing desk officer, joint manager, Branch Head, Regional Head, Zonal Head, GM Operation &CGM all this entire chain is responsible .
The same incident took place in my branch. On maturity when customer came for payment of FDR it was found that the amount which was not debited in the SB account at the time of issue of FDR but the same was lying in SB account. Then maturity value was paid to the party ( principal amount & interest credited in the account fro SB account and difference from P/L Interest Paid account & the matter was closed.
in my opinion bailable warrants should be issued against Branch Managers and concerned erring officers. Because it was moral duty of the BM and erring officers to get the penalty amount deducted and non compliance of order of consumer commission commited by them.
The copy of order was to be given to the CGM.
The consumer has suffered financial loss due to non issuance of fixed deposit. If the amount of Rs one lakh intended for FDR has continuously remained with the Bank, the consumer forum should have awarded the loss suffered by the consumer owing to inaction by the branch. In addition to this any other loss suffered by the consumer alongwith legal expenses may have been additionally awarded.
Another issue arises from not carrying out the award given by District Consumer Forum. The persons responsible for non compliance can be given punishment as per the facts and circumstances before the Commission. How CGM has come in this award is incomprehensible as branch comes under the supervision of Regional Manager and Zonal Manager.
But did not the customer notice that Rs 1 lakh was not recovered from his account. Did he think that he won 1 lakh jackpot-getting FD without account getting debited.
Top bank officials think that they are above institutional system and beyond reach of law. If the amount was not debited to A/c while creating FD, how receipt and disbursement of the day tallied? Why it was not rectified during last ten years? Is this financial mismatch reflected in monthly balancing of head of accounts all these years? How half yearly compliance reports was submitted to RBI in this regard without tallying the heads? What internal auditors and system admins were doing all these time? Till this questions are answered convincingly, CGM-Operations should continue under watch at least to forward a strong message that legal system of nation is in safe hands.
Your reply or comment whatever you like to name shows that you know nothing about banking. You are telling of tallying of head. If there is no transaction and amount lie in SB also the head will tally.
Please don’t make just comment for the sake of making comment.
Customer must have got his savings account statement updated and found non deduction of the FDR amount which seems he deliberately did not inform the branch officials.any discrepancy found should be brought to the notice if the bank within a fortnight from the date of issue of statement or passbook. Malafide intention on customers part is evident.
How a warrant is issued against a CGM, is not clear? Please upload the copy of order.
I concur with the opinions of Shri Natarajan. The differential rate of interest to be paid. As part of internal punishment of CENSURE may be given for reputational loss. Further I would like to why this petty issue is ruptured to that extension. Unnecessary blown out of portion.
I think fdr intrest should be paid by bank if customer not withdraw the amount during fdr time and bank may take appropriate action against his staff .
Do the Consumer Protection Forum have powers to issue arrest orders. They in my opinion are empowered to award monetory compensation to the litigants.
This scenario perhaps has resulted in non compliance of earlier order imposing penalty on erring staff members & awarding it to customer.
Chief General Manager post is created only to console those who could not get ED post. Why a CGM is made a scape goat sparing all other posts below or above him.
बैंक की सेवाओ मे कमी को निर्णित मानते हुए ही consumer form ने recovery का order दिया होगा
फिर बैंक ने recovery ना कर court केनिर्णय की अवहेलना कर दी
तो customer protection करने
के लिए मान नीय कोर्ट को कार्य वाही तो करनी ही होंगी।
Malafide intention of customer. Court order is not justified. Court should order to pay only interest portion.
The customer doesn’t observe that such a big amount like Rs.1 lakh is not debited to his account which the consumer CPF has not given importance. The customer would have thought that he had gained Rs.1 lakh till he was denied fd proceeds.
Action should have been taken against the person’s below instead of CGM of the Bank by the Consumer Commission.
Is customer was not aware of FDR amount lying in saving bank account since last 10 yrs.Why customer has not inform bank regarding non deduction of amount.
First of all, why nobody is interested in questioning the negligent attitude of the customer wrt the following.
1. When the application was submitted for opening a deposit, within a day or two, he should have demanded for the deposit receipt. Yes, of course, during the last ten years, SMS alert facility might not have been implemented soon after migration to CBS, in BOB. The fact that he has not verified his debit transactions in his account for the last 10 years, is a debatable issue.
Under the circumstances, which prevailed 10 years back, soon after migration to CBS, in any PSB for that matter, with good intentions of customer service,the branch officials might have issued the manual deposit receipt (because, if there were any network failures on that particular day of opening the deposit) to the customer. In those cases, definitely the counter staff would have informed the same to the customer. Subsequently, the staff might have forgotten to debit his account. (without original deposit receipt, on this day, customer can not claim the maturity proceeds of the deposit). As the customer is (may) in possession of the original deposit receipt, he is claiming the maturity proceeds. Otherwise, what is the proof for his deposit. Even, if the original application and signed debit slips are available with the branch (presumptions_ no branch is giving the copy of the application to the customers as acknowledgement) on what basis now, the customer is claiming the refund?..
Ok..we will assume that the customer is right in all respects (the “intelligent ignorance ” of the customer that he is not aware of the fact that the amount was not debited to his account, is proved beyond doubt), two questions arise.
1. Whether the amount is still laying in his SB account for all these 10 years?.. if the answer is yes and he is possession of original deposit receipt, he is entitled for the differential FD interest (simple or compounded depending on the nature of request by the customer) till date of maturity at the rate prevailing on the date of request for opening the deposit. This situation could have been easily resolved by the bank by making payment of the interest by either ways ( recover from the employees or by debiting to interest paid account ) just because of the fact that the branch has issued deposit receipt.
If the deposit receipt has not been issued and amount is not debited to his customer, no contract was executed as per his the request of the customer. Hence, just by the fact that he has submitted his application for deposit, he is not entitled for the benefit. The bank should have argued accordingly.
By looking at the facts which are narrated above, it is evident that the case is represented properly on behalf of the employees by the bank. And this has resulted in bringing disrepute to the poor CGM, now. This kind of ackward situation could have been properly handled by the people at Regional level itself, had they been bit responsible because payment of differential interest for Rs. 100000, is not a great thing for BOB…
Simply, the customer ( who is very intelligent in feigning his ignorance and taken advantage of the poor situations which prevailed 10years back in PSB’s soon after migration to CBS) is benefitted and the employees are made scapegoats. The ignorance level of the employees who are working now at the branches about the conditions 10years back, are also attributable these kinds of decisions against the bank. Because, all PSB’ s are working under very hostile conditions now, they cannot expect favorable favorable decision by the consumer forums unless otherwise represented strongly and favorably with proper evidences. We have to bear in mind that the customer CANNOT ALWAYS BE RIGHT.
Not properly represented in the court on behalf of employees and the situation. The Customer can not always be right. Poor CGM is unnecessarily implicated.
Be act with commonsense while discharging the duties to avoid this type of goodwill damage to the banking industry
Using common sense while discharging the duties can avoid this type of problems and goodwill damage of banking industry