BANK OF MAHARASHTRA THROUGH ITS BRANCH MANAGER, BRANCH ALIGANJ vs UTKARSH PHARMA & ANR.

This Revision Petition by the Bank of Maharashtra, the sole Opposite Party in the Complaint, is directed against the order dated 27.04.2016, passed by the U.P. State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission at Lucknow (for short "the State Commission") in Appeal No. 824 of 2012. By the impugned order, the State Commission has affirmed the order dated 27.03.2012, passed by the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum - II at Lucknow (for short "the District Forum") in Complaint Case No. 332/2011. By the said order, the District Forum, while accepting the Complaint filed by the Respondents herein, had directed the Petitioner Bank to pay to the Complainants a sum of 3,99,176/- within two months from the date of the said order along with interest @ 8% per annum for the period mentioned in the order, on account of deficiency on its part in clearing a cheque in the sum of 3,19,190/, by debiting the said amount to an independent overdraft account maintained by the Complainants with the Bank.

In nutshell, the occasion to file the Complaint arose because of the alleged deficiency on the part of the Petitioner Bank, which, instead of returning the cheque issued by the Complainants from the current account, as unpaid on account of insufficient funds in the said account, debited the said amount to another overdraft account, without any specific instructions to that effect.

When the case came up for consideration on 10.08.2016, learned Counsel appearing for the Bank had sought time to place on record the instructions, if any, issued by the Complainants, permitting the Bank to debit their overdraft account in the event of insufficient credit balance in the current account from where they had issued the cheque in question. Learned Counsel states that as per his instructions, no such instructions were issued by the Complainants to the Bank.

In view of the said statement, in our view, no fault can be found with the concurrent finding of fact recorded by both the Forums below, to the effect that debiting of the amount in question to an independent account by the Bank without instructions from the account holder amounted to deficiency in service. Undoubtedly, intra-account financial transactions have to be as per the mandate of the account holder and no discretion is vested in the Bank to unilaterally inter-mingle the transactions in two or more independent accounts. In that view of the matter, we do not find any jurisdictional error in the impugned order, warranting our interference.

At this juncture, learned Counsel has strenuously urged that since the Complainants had availed of the services of the Bank for commercial purpose, they were not ''consumers'' within Section 2(1)(d) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 and the Complaint ought to have been dismissed on that short ground. We do not agree. Apart from the fact that even after the filing of the Complaint, the Bank did not attach much importance to the notice received by it from the District Forum and chose not to file its response to the Complaint, it is too late in the day to permit the Bank to raise such a plea, the question as to whether or not the services were availed by the Complainants exclusively for the purposes of earning their livelihood by self-employment is a pure question of fact, which could be adjudicated if, in the first instance, such an objection had been raised by the Bank in its Written Version. Pertinently, neither the Written Version was filed nor such a plea was raised by the Bank even in its First Appeal before the State Commission.

It is pointed out by the learned Counsel that the order passed by the District Forum suffers from a typographical error, inasmuch as the amount, directed to be refunded, has been recorded as 3,99,176/-, whereas the actual cheque amount was 3,19,190/-. Having perused the copy of the cheque in question, placed on record, we find merit in the submission. Accordingly, while maintaining the orders passed by the lower Fora, we direct that the principal amount, to be refunded by the Petitioner Bank to the Complainants, would be 3,19,190/- and not 3,99,176/-.

Resultantly, with the afore-stated clarification, the Revision Petition is dismissed.