BEFORE DISTRICT CONSUMER DISPUTES REDRESSAL FORUM, SAHIBZADA AJIT SINGH NAGAR (MOHALI)
Consumer Complaint No.203 of 2015
Date of institution: 05.05.2015
Date of Decision: 29.04.2016
Deepak Garg son of Jaswant Rai Garg, resident of D-58, Panchsheel Enclave, Bishanpura, Zirakpur.
……..Complainant
Versus
1. Branch Manager, State Bank of India Branch, Zirakpur.
2. General Manager, State Bank of India (Local Head Office), Sector 17, Chandigarh.
………. Opposite Parties
Complaint under Section 12 of the
Consumer Protection Act, 1986.
CORAM
Mrs. Madhu. P. Singh, President.
Mrs. R.K. Aulakh, Member.
Present: Shri Gaurav Saini, counsel for the complainant.
Shri Nitin Sharma, counsel for the OPs.
(Mrs. Madhu P. Singh, President)
ORDER
The complainant has filed the present complaint seeking following direction to the Opposite Parties (for short ‘the OPs’) to:
- Pay him compensation to the tune of Rs.18,00,000/-.
- To pay him Rs.20,000/- litigation expenses.
The complainant opened bank account No.10333612922 with OP No.1 about 10 years ago and since then he had been making transactions through his aforesaid bank account. The complainant had matrimonial discord with his wife and both of them are living separately since November, 2013. The complainant came to know in February 2015 that the OPs issued his bank account statements for the extensive periods of January 2013 to December, 2013 and June 2014 to December, 2014 to the wife of the complainant, without any authorization or request made by the complainant in violation of norms laid down in Master Circular on Customer Services issued by Reserve Bank of India. These statements had been illegally used by the wife of complainant in a private dispute in a court at Hansi, District Hisar. The complainant immediately approached the bank officials but was not given any satisfactory explanation. The complainant even sent his complaint through e-mail to the DGM, Customer Services SBI. However, no action has been taken against the defaulting officials of the OPs. As per ‘Code of Bank’s Commitment to Customers’ it is mandatory on the part of the banks to safeguard and protect all personal information of the clients and the same should be kept private and confidential. Thus, alleging negligence in service on the part of the OPs, the complainant has filed the present complaint.
2. The OPs in their joint written statement have pleaded in the preliminary objections that legally wedded wife of the complainant approached OP No.1 with some exigency of statement. Taking into right spirit, the OPs provided the statement upon furnishing of certain documents regarding the relationship of husband and wife. The wife of the complainant had not disclosed about pendency of any dispute between her and her husband i.e. the complainant. Various disputed questions of facts are involved and the matter requires the trial and evidence for the proper adjudication of the same which cannot be decided in summary trial. As such the complainant can seek remedy from the civil courts. The complaint made by the Banking Ombudsman has been dismissed and the present complaint is hit by principle of resjudicata. On merits, it is pleaded that the complainant is having the grouse of an order passed by the civil courts at Hisar while deciding an interim application in which amount of maintenance has been granted not only on the basis of statement of account but not the basis of salary certificate. The letters, emails or queries of the complainant were duly answered by the OPs with true and factual position. Denying any negligence and deficiency in service on their part, the OPs have sought dismissal of the complaint.
3. To succeed in the complaint, the complainant proved on record his affidavit Ex.CW-1/1 & copies of documents Ex.C-1 to C-5.
4. Evidence of the OPs consists of affidavit of Ms. Shikha Mittal, Branch Manager Ex.OP-1/1 and copies of documents Ex.OP-1 to OP-5.
5. We have heard learned counsel for the parties and gone through the written arguments filed by them.
6. The complainant is an account holder of the OPs is an admitted fact between the parties. The dispute issue involved in the complaint is that without consent and knowledge of the complainant, the OPs have shared the information and data relating to his account with his wife and have thus violated the terms of privacy and confidentiality as per Code of Banks Commitment to Customers. Whether the act of the OPs in passing on the information of the account of the complainant to his wife without his consent and knowledge, is an act of deficiency in service or not, is the issue to be determined in the present complaint.
7. The OPs have admitted having the account of the complainant and have further admitted sharing the information with the wife of the complainant as they have provided the bank account statement for January, 2013 to December, 2013 and June, 2014 to December, 2014.
8. Since the issue in dispute has already been admitted by the OPs, now the perusal of Code of Banks Commitment to Customers downloaded by the complainant from the site of the OPs, being a public document has been relied upon by the complainant to prove his complaint against the OPs. The perusal of Code of Banks Commitment to Customers relevant being Clause-5 relates to the code of consumers rights with regard to privacy and confidentiality. The relevant clause is reproduced as below:
“a. We will treat all your personal information as private and confidential (even when you are no longer a customer), and shall be guided by the following principles and policies.
b. We will not reveal information or data relating to your accounts, whether provided by you or otherwise, to anyone including other companies/entities in our group, other than in the following exceptional cases:
i. If we have to give the information by law or if required by the banking regulator.
ii. if there is a duty towards the public to reveal the information.
iii. If our interests require us to give the information (for example, to prevent fraud) but we will not use this as a reason for giving information about you or your accounts (including your name and address) to anyone else including other companies in our group, for marketing purposes.
iv. if you authorize us to reveal the information.
v. If we are asked to give a banker’s reference about you, we will need your written permission before we give it.”
9. In the present complaint, the OPs are bound by the Code of Banks Commitment to Customers and the Clause 5 pertains to privacy and confidentiality of the account holder is a safeguard to the consumers right which sets minimum standards of banking practices, members banks has to follow while they deal with individual customers. The information pertaining to the account of the account holder cannot be revealed to anyone without the authorization of the account holder. In the present the OPs have admittedly shared the information of the account of the complainant with his wife as they have admittedly provided the statement of accounts for January, 2013 to December, 2013 and June, 2014 to December, 2014. Thus, the OPs have violated their own Code of Bank’s Commitment to Customers. The act of the OPs thus in sharing the information of the account of complainant without his consent and knowledge is an act of deficiency in service being violative of Code of Bank’s Commitment to customers. The OPs have not produced any contrary instructions of the bank to rebut the Code of Bank’s Commitment to customers having been relied upon by the complainant. Thus, the complainant has proved his case against the OPs and the complaint deserves to be allowed and the complainant deserves to be compensated. The complainant himself has admitted that there is some matrimonial dispute between him and his wife as the information so provided by the OPs has been used by his wife for securing maintenance from the court of law.
10. In view of above discussions, the complaint is allowed with the following directions to the OPs to:
(a) to pay to the complainant compensation to the tune of Rs.25,000/- (Rs. Twenty five thousand only) for mental agony and harassment.
(b) to pay to the complainant compensation to the tune of Rs.10,000/- (Rs. Ten thousand only) as costs of litigation.
Compliance of the above directions be made within a period of thirty days from the date of receipt of a certified copy of this order. Certified copies of the order be furnished to the parties forthwith free of cost and thereafter the file be consigned to the record room.
Pronounced.
April 29, 2016.
(Mrs. Madhu P. Singh)
President
(Mrs. R.K. Aulakh)
Member
