Orissa

Sambalpur

CC/38/2019

Mohammed Mustaq Ansari - Complainant(s)

Versus

1- ICICI Bank Ltd. - Opp.Party(s)

G.P. Lal and others

30 Aug 2022

ORDER

PRESIDENT, DISTRICT CONSUMER DISPUTES REDRESSAL COMMISSION, SAMBALPUR

Consumer Case No- 38/2019

Present-Dr. Ramakanta Satapathy, President,

  Sri. Sadananda Tripathy, Member,

 

Mohammed Mustaq Ansari

S/o- Mohammed Mubaraq Ansari,

R/O- Brookshill Colony, Near Kinder Kin School,

Sambalpur, Ps- Dhanupali, Po/ Dist- Sambalpur.                   ………..…..Complainant

 

Vrs.

1. ICICI Bank Ltd

At- Quality Mansion, Nayapara,

PS- Town, Po/Dist- Sambalpur,

represented through its B.M

2. ICICI Bank Ltd. Regional Office.

At- OCCf Building Opposite Sriya Cinema Hall,

Kharvelnagar, Unit-3, Ps- Kharvelnagar, Bhubaneswar, Dist- Khurda, Odisha, Represented through its Regional Head.

3. ICICI Bank Ltd. Corporate Office.

At- ICICI Bank Tower, Ground Floor, Bandra- Kurla Complex,

Bandra (East), Ps- Bandra, Dist- Mumbai,

Being represented through its Corporate Head.

4. St.Joseph Convent Higher Secondary School,

At- Sakhigopinath Para, Opposite Iskon Temple,

Ps- Dhanupali, Po/Dist- Sambalpur,

Being represented through its Principal Sister Anjana... ………..Opp. Parties

Counsels:-

1. For the Complainant                   :-         Sri. G.P.Lal, Advocate & Associates
2. For the O.P. 1,2 & 3                    :-         Smt. N.K.Dash, Advocate & Associates
3. For the O.P.4                               :-         Sri. B.Singh, Advocate & Associates

 

DATE OF HEARING :13.07.2022, DATE OF JUDGEMENT : 30.08.2022

           Presented by Sadananda Tripathy, MEMBER,

1. The Brief fact of the Complainant is that the Complainant’s daughter is a student of OP No. 4 and at the time of her admission in the institution, the Complainant was handed over with a circular under the head of OP No. 1 containing the Fee Payment Structure, Method ofand Amount for the academic session-2019-2020. During the month of April-2019, the OP No. 4 made a communication to all the parents/guardian through a general meeting directing to deposit the Fees for the Academic session 2019-2020 directly in the ICICI Bank Ltd, Nayapara Sambalpur Branch to as OP No. 1 and that no fee shall be accepted by the OP No. 4. The parents/guardians can make the payment of the fee through On-Line Payment Method or may as well pay through cash but request was earnestly made to adopt On-Line Payment Method in order to support the Government of India, Cashless Movement. Further, it was communicated that in the beginning of every month the parents will receive a SMS from OP No. 1 regarding the “Amount of fee due for that month” together with a Unique Transaction ID and a Passcode to be quoted while making the payment. As communicated, the Complainant received a SMS From OP No.1 intimating him to make the payment of Rs. 2880/- covering fees for the month of both April’19 and May’19, by 25^th of May’19. As per the SMS received from the side of OP No. 1, the Complainant on dtd 15^th May’19 through OP No. 1 On-Line payment portal/URL “eazypay” made the payment of the billed amount of Rs. 2880/- and received an e-receipt as an acknowledgement from OP No. 1 being sent to his email Id. On carefully scrutinizing the e-receipt, the Complainant surprisingly noticed that apart from the fee amount of Rs. 2880/- , he has been charged with an extra amount of Rs. 10/- which includes charges of Rs. 8.48 under the head Convenience Fee and Rs. 1.52 as GST. Meanwhile, the Complainant received another SMS on June’19 fee and similarly on dtd 21^st June’19 online payment was made and an acknowledgement intimating the Complainant about the success of the transaction was sent by OP No. 1, However, this time as well the Complainant surprisingly noticed similar transaction of an extra amount of Rs. 10/- which includes charges of Rs. 8.48 under the head Convenience Fee and Rs. 1.52 as GST. This time the Complainant approached the OP No. 1 and OP NO. 4 by visiting their respective offices and demanded an explanation on being charged with an extra amount of Rs. 10/- every time he make the fee payment. Instead of extending a proper explanation to the Complainant both the OP No. 1 and 4 passed sarcastic remarks upon the Complainant to which the Complainant felt humaliated. The unfair trade practice of charging Rs. 10/- under the head of Convenience fee and GST on every online transaction w.r.t fee payment is an unceremonious, unregenerate practice and against the basic principle of law. The OP No. 1 is a branch of one of the world’s leading financial institution Bank, the OP No. 2 and 3 are the Regional Office and Corporate Office of OP No. 1 and the OP No. 4 is the educational institution who has collaborated with the OP No. 1 functioning under the supervision of OP No. 2 and OP No. 3, as such they fall within the purview of ‘service’ as contemplated in Section 2 (1)(0) of Consumer Protection Act. The OP No. 1 to 3 are working in collusion with OP No. 4 in charging an extra amount of Rs. 10/- being charged on every online transaction of fee payment and irrespective of the fact that they shares a Service Provider-Consumer relationship with the Complainant and each of such Consumers and is under a legal obligation to protect their interest theyare engaged into an unfair trade practice by forcing its Consumers to pay an extra amount of Rs. 10/- in every online transaction of fee payment.

2. The written version of O.P No. 1, 2 and 3 is that there is no prima facie case made out against the Opposite party Bank. The first requirement of filing a complaint U/S 12 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 is that they have to be in the nature of a “complaint” as per section 2© and the Complainant should be a “consumer” as per section 2(d) and as the Complainant is not a consumer of the Opposite Party Bank . ICICI Bank Limited is a Scheduled Commercial Bank established under the Banking Regulation Act and is guided by the Rules, Regulations and Circulars of the Reserve Bank of India. The OP No. 4 is an account holder of the OP No. 1, having account no. 252305000492. The OP No. 4 had availed online payment facilities offered by ICICI Bank Limited through Easypay portal so as to reduce the cash management expenditures and increase efficiency in collection of fees. The OP No. 4 has duly accepted the charges (including GST) which would be levied on the payments processed through the Easy pay portal. In the instant matter, OP No. 4 had chosen to pass on the liability to pay the charges (including GST) to its customers including the Complainant. Pursuant to negotiations between the Opposite Party Bank and OP No. 4, the transaction charges (including GST) have been finalized which are as :

1. Debit Card- 1% (Nil for transactions below Rs. 2000)
2. Credit Card- 1%
3. Cash- Rs. 30 per transaction
4. Net Banking- Rs. 10 per transaction
5. NEFT/RTGS- Nil

The OP No. 4 called for a meeting of the parents of the students, including the Complainant, in order to apprise them of the revised school fees payment mechanism through Easy Pay Portal of the Opposite Party Bank. That in the said meeting, the parents were guided in respect to the process of depositing the School Fees. In the meeting, officials of the OP No. 1 clearly explained the procedure for making payments to the parents along with details of the transaction charges and taxes payable thereon. The OP No. 4 also distributed pamphlets to the parents which contained the details of the payment mechanism available to the parents. The End-users/Parents are required to visit the Easy Pay Website (www.easypay@icicibank.com) and select the name of the institution to whom they want to make payment. Upon selection of the institution, the End-users/parents are required to insert details of the School registration, class, section and mobile number. Thereafter, a One Time Password is received at the phone number and upon submission of the same, the details of the fees payable is shown to the End-users/Parents for verification of the particulars of the transaction. In the same page of the website, the End-users are required to accept the terms and conditions of the Easy Pay Facility in order to proceed with transaction. The terms and conditions are made available to the End-users/Parents through the link provided in the page. Under the terms and conditions of the Easy Pay Facility, the End-user/Parents duly accepted the liability to make payment of transaction charges (inclusive of GST) applicable in respect to the various modes of payment. Upon acceptance of terms and conditions, the End-users/Parents are directed to the page containing the various payment methods which can be selected by the End-users/Parents as per their convenience. The charges and GST entailed to each of the mode of payment is also clearly displayed in order to allow the End-user to make an informed choice. The Complainant herein could have chosen to make payment through RTGS/NEFT in which case no additional charges were to be levied. The Complainant made an informed choice to make payment through internet banking upon which a charge (inclusive of GST) amounting to Rs. 10 per transaction was levied. The Complainant was aware about the transaction cost that shall be incurred before making the payment. Before making the final online payment, the charges and GST payable are displayed along with the total bill amount at the time of bill payment. The convenience charge is displayed to the payer before the generation of challan and making the final bill payment.  Such charges being levied by the answering Opposite Party Bank is in compliance with the guidelines issued by the Reserve Bank of India and such online payment service are being offered by the Bank is in line with such guidelines. The charges payable are displayed along with total amount payable at the time of payment of bill and the Complainant could have chosen to make payment through NEFT/RTGS which involved NIL charges. The Complainant was fully aware about the charges that were deducted and consciously chose the instant payment option, even though he was informed about other charge free payment options like NEFT. The Complainant was availing service of Opposite Party No. 4 and it was at the instance of the Opposite Party No.4 that the Complainant used the Opposite Party Bank’s online platform to make the payment of the school fees. The Opposite Party Bank was offering the online payment services to the Opposite Party No. 4. Therefore, he is not a “Consumer” within Section 2(1) (d) nor did he avail any “service” under Section 2 (1) (0) under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 from the Opposite Party Bank.

3. The written version of O.P No.4 is that there is no prima facie case made out against the OP No. 4. The first requirement of filing a complaint under section 12 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 is that they have to be in the nature of a “complaint” as per section 2 © and the Complainant should be a “consumer” as per section 2 (d) and as the Complainant is not a consumer of the OP No. 4 . The Supreme Court, in Maharshi Dayanand University V. Surjeet Kaur (2010) 11 SCC 159, relying upon all earlier judgements, the apex court held that “education is not a commodity. Educational institutions are not providing any kind of service, therefore, in the matter of admission; fees etc., there cannot be a question of deficiency of service Such matters cannot be entertained by the Consumer Forum under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.The OP No. 4 was not collecting the school fees in the campus since the year 2018, for the year 2018-2019, the school fees was being collected at Yes Bank and the school authorities transferred the fees collection from Yes Bank to ICICI Bank from the academic year 2019-2020 It is wrong/false to say that the OP No. 4 directed everyone to deposit the fees at ICICI Bank, Nayapara Branch and no fee shall be accepted by OP NO. 4 moreover in the said meeting the Opposite Party Bank Officers informed one and all that there will charges for debit card, cash and net banking deposits whereas NEFT/RTGS will be free of conveyance charges which is in accordance with the RBI Guidelines. The Complainant and the other parents were adequately informed about the transaction procedure and alternate modes available in the general meeting. Further, the Complainant could have chosen to make payment through NEFT/RTGS which involved Nil charges and the Complainant was fully aware about the charges as it is displayed at the time of opting the mode of payment and he consciously chose the instant payment option.

4. From the above it is found that the allegation made by the Complainant against the O.Ps are not correct. The Complainant and the other parents were adequately informed about the transaction procedure and alternate modes available in the general meeting. Further, the Complainant could have chosen to make payment through NEFT/RTGS which involved Nil charges and the Complainant was fully aware about the charges as it is displayed at the time of opting the mode of payment and he consciously chose the instant payment option. In the above circumstances the case is dismissed on contest.

Order pronounced in the open Court today on 30th day of Aug, 2022.

Free copies of this order to the parties are supplied.