BANK OF BARODA vs K Natarajan

WE heard the Counsel and in our view, the following order would meet the ends of justice.

THE case of the complainant is that he lost his credit card that it had been misused and in the process the issuing bank had charged him for such misuse even though he had notified them about the loss/theft of the card. His further case was that he had asked for copies of the charge slips from the opposite parties so that he could himself proceed against those institutions to recover the amounts covered by those charge slips. According to the opposite parties, the complainant had not notified the theft of the card in time with the result the matter went out of control and the damage could not be prevented.

The District Forum gave relief to the complainant on the ground that the bank had stipulated charges at the rate of Rs. 200 each for 80 charge slips alleged to have been misused and this was clear deficiency in service. Ultimately, the District Forum directed the opposite parties to pay the complainant a sum of Rs. 1, 53,639. 96 with interest at the rate of 12% per annum from the date of complaint till payment with cost of Rs. 1,000 giving a month''s time for payment of the said amount.

AGGRIEVED, the present appeal has been filed. In our view, both parties were at fault. So far as the complainant was concerned, he had not noticed the theft of the card at the time he filed an FIR complaining about the loss of his other belongings and by the time, according to him, he realised that he had lost the credit card also and notified the bank, it was late for the bank to act effectively. So far as the bank was concerned, it was too much on its part to have stipulated Rs. 200 per charge slips to enable the complainant to take independent action against the member institution. In the above circumstances, we deem it proper to direct the parties to the litigation to share the loss in equal proportion.

WE are informed that a sum of Rs. 1,92,372 is in deposit to the credit of the complainant. The deposit was made in 2002 and over the years, interest also has accumulated. The amount in such deposit with accrued interest shall be shared equally between the parties, that is to say, the opposite parties shall pay the exact one-half of the amount now available to the credit of the complainant and appropriate the balance. The appeal is thus disposed of. Appeal disposed of.