HOLDING the Indian Overseas Bank ( IOB) guilty of not following the Reserve Bank of India ( RBI) norms for payment of money to the legal heirs of an account holder after his death, a Delhi district consumer forum has asked the bank to pay ` 10,000 as damages to the widow of one of its customers.
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum ( Central) held the bank guilty of deficient service for not paying the money to the widow, Seema Thakur, of Bansi Lal Thakur, who had his account with the bank.
Due to non- payment of money to her, the woman had failed to deposit her son’s fees, resulting in cancellation of his admission to the school.
“ By not following the guidelines of the RBI, the bank has caused hardship to the complainant ( Seema), who suffered after the death of her husband and could not pay the school and examination fees of her son. The act of the bank has caused deficiency in service,” the forum said.
The forum presided by District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum president B. B. Chaudhary gave the order on the plea of South Delhi resident, Seema, who had alleged that the bank failed to disburse the amount deposited with it by her late husband, resulting in her son being debarred from school as she couldn’t deposit the fees.
She said in her plea that she had approached the bank for the money deposited in it by her late husband as it was needed urgently for payment of the school fees of her children.
The bank, in its defence said, “ there was no nominee listed in its late customer’s account to receive money from it and it could not be disbursed to his wife and two children alone as his mother too was entitled to the money and her “ no objection certificate” was not shown.” The forum observed that the bank kept the amount of the complainant against the RBI norms and must have used that amount for its benefit.
-PTI