Date of Filing : 07 March, 2019.
Date of Judgement : 19 May, 2023.
Mr. Dhiraj Kumar Dey, Hon’ble Member.
This case arises when the complainant, Sri Ajoy Chatterjee, filed a complaint under Section 12 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, herein after called the said Act, against the Branch Manager, State Bank of India, Chetla Branch, hereinafter called the Opposite Party or O. P., alleging deficiency in service occurred from the part of the Opposite Party.
The brief statement of the complaint is that the Complainant has a Saving Bank Account bearing A/C. No. 20271650824 which is linked with his Senior Citizen Savings Scheme Account bearing No. 35661764023, both are under the Chetla Branch of SBI, the O. P. herein above. Complainant alleges that the O. P. has debited Rs.86.25P on 10/06/2017, Rs.115/- on 14/07/2017, Rs.88.50P on 19/08/2017 and Rs.59/- on 31/08/2017, totalling Rs.348.75P from his above noted Saving Account though he has maintained the minimum balance of Rs.1,000/- in this account. Complainant states that the O. P. has raised the Minimum Balance from Rs.1,000/- to Rs.5,000/- on 01/04/2017 in his Savings Account for which he is not bound or obliged to comply with the change in Minimum Balance and accordingly he did not maintain such increased Minimum Balance in his Savings Account. Complainant states that he had no liberty to withdraw this Savings Account as it was linked with his Senior Citizen Savings Scheme Account which had a lock period of 5 years. Complainant then wrote two letters on 03/07/2017 and on 27/04/2018 to the Chairman, SBI, through the Branch Manager, Chetla Branch, seeking remedy of his grievance, even demanding the Bank to declare his Savings Bank Account as Special Savings bank Account which runs with 0 (zero) balance. But his efforts bring no fruitful result. Instead, in reply to his first letter dated 03/07/2017, the Branch Manager of Chetla Branch wrote to the complainant on 25/08/2017 that his Savings Bank Account should maintain a Minimum Average Balance (MAB) of Rs.5,000/-. If the account holder intends to open a Basic Savings Account then the account holder should follow certain criteria inherent to such account. Finding no fruitful result complainant filed the instant complaint praying to direct the O. P. to credit the debited amount with interest, to direct the O. P. to pay interest of Fixed Deposit for excess amount over the minimum balance of Rs.1,000/-, to allow to maintain a Special Savings Bank Account with Cheque facility, to allow withdrawal for unlimited times with 0 (zero) balance or Minimum Balance of Rs.1,000/- , to pay litigation cost as this Forum/Commission deem fit and proper.
Complainant submitted copies of (i) First page and relevant page of Pass Book, (ii) two letters dated 03/07/2017 and 27/04/2018 issued by the complainant (iii) the letter issued by the Branch Manager on 25/08/2017 to the complainant.
This Commission/Forum served notice, after admission, to the O. P. to appear and contest the case. O. P. appeared through his Ld. Advocate and submitted his written version. Consequently Complainant filed his Affidavit-In-Chief. O. P. then intended not to file any questionnaire and subsequently filed his evidence. Complainant then filed his questionnaire and reply is filed by the O. P. Ultimately argument was heard. Both the Complainant and O. P. filed their respective Brief Notes of Arguments. We are now in the juncture to deliver the Final Order in this case. We have to decide whether the O. P. Bank is deficient in rendering proper service to the complainant for which he is entitled to get relief as prayed for.
DECISION WITH REASONS
According to the statement of the complaint, complainant had a Senior Citizen Savings Scheme account (SCSS) with the O. P. bank branch for which complainant had to open a Savings Bank Account with Minimum Balance of Rs.1,000/-. Complainant’s allegation is that the O. P. has debited on different dates illegally from his Saving Account though he has maintained the required Minimum Balance of Rs.1,000/-. Complainant alleges that the O P has illegally raised the minimum balance from Rs.1,000/-to Rs.5,000/- in his Savings Account from 01/04/2017 and such debits occurred thereafter. Being aggrieved he wrote two letters on 03/7/2017 and 27/4/2018 seeking remedy for such deductions. After receiving his first letter the branch Manager/O. P. wrote the complainant that he has the liberty to open a Basic Savings Account, if he is unable to maintain his Savings Account, with some basic criteria to be followed like: (i) Maximum 4 withdrawals including ATM withdrawals, (ii) No Minimum balance to be maintained, (iii) No Cheque Book to be issued, (iv) Deposit of Bank Branch will be free, and (v) ATM Card will be issued free of cost. But the complainant did not wish to accept the 1st and 3rd criteria and he prayed before this Commission to allow him to maintain a Special Saving Account with cheque facility and with unlimited withdrawals.
It is a general practice the banks follow that: Savings Bank account is a form of demand deposit account, opened mainly for the purpose of saving and not for any business purpose, subject to restrictions on the number of withdrawals during any specified period.
In the written version O. P. stated that he himself has not raised the minimum balance from Rs.1,000/- to Rs.5,000/-, as is alleged by the complainant, rather it is the decision of the Management of SBI who has raised Minimum (Average) Balance maintainability condition in a Savings Account. O. P. stated that SCSS is a contractual agreement whereas Savings Account is not at all a contractual agreement. It is rightly stated by the O. P. that every person whoever has any account with the SBI is bound to comply with the changes in minimum balance. The complainant has the every right to change or withdraw/close his account. Whenever an account holder changes his account into another account he must obey the rules and regulations inherent to such accounts. A whimsical change beyond such rules is not possible as all the banks are governed by the RBI through their guidelines. It seems the complainant was not aware of the changes in Minimum Average Balance (MAB) in a Savings Account and when it came to his knowledge he must follow the banking rules to minimize his loss. Instead, he wrote to the ‘Chairman’, SBI, Kolkata. He should be aware that the Chairman of SBI has his office at its Corporate Centre at SBI Bhavan, Madame Cama Road, Nariman Point, Mumbair – 400 021, and not at Kolkata. Complaint wants a Special Savings Account with 0 (zero) balance and with cheque facility and unlimited withdrawals which is not possible according to SBI rules. In reply to the questionnaire of the complainant O. P. stated that opening an account is solely discretion of a customer and not the bank (Reply No. 9). Moreover we see in the official website of SBI wherein it is stated that:
“Change in Rules
The Bank reserves the right to alter, delete or add to any of these Rules and service charges for which the customer will be duly notified through Bank's website and/ or branch notice board. (Rule Nos. 39, 46).”
O. P. has annexed an eCircular bearing No. NBG/PBBU/LI-MA Circular No. – 19 of 2017-18, dated 05/10/2017 in his Brief Notes of Argument that SBI has changed the MAB from Rs.5,000/- to Rs.3,000/- in Savings Account in Metro area with effect from 01/10/2017.
We have seen that in the judgement in Revision Petition No. 1643 of 2011, (Narendra Lal Jain -Vs- New India Assurance Co. Ltd. & Others) the Hon’ble National Commission states that “Bank is bound to safeguard accounts of its customers”. Again, in Revision Petition No. 2611 of 2013, (B. L. Malviya -Vs- A. Zohari, AM, SBI) the Hon’ble National Commission states that “ …. no deficiency can be alleged against opposite party on a wrongful act of complainant himself.” Here, in the instant case, the O. P. stated in his written version as well as in the brief notes of argument that they are bound to follow the express rules governing different kinds of accounts a customer can have with the bank in order to safeguard customers’ benefits. On the other hand a customer/consumer has also the liability to follow the applicable rules governing his account. Here the Bank authority raised the MAB from Rs.5,000/- w. e. f. 01/04/2017 which was subsequently decreased to Rs.3,000/- w. e. f. 01/10/2017. It’s a general procedure for any nationalised bank that whenever there is a change of interest rate, service charges, etc., every bank branch put these changes in their Notice Board. Complainant failed to notice the change in MAB for his Savings Account. Here, we have noted an interesting point. The statement of the concerned Savings Bank A/C No. 20271650824 annexed with the complaint petition reveals that on 08/04/2017 the balance was Rs.2,054.08P. His balance in this account never reached Rs.5,000/- until 04/09/2017 when his balance became Rs.5,003.33P. O. P. debited/deducted Rs.86.25P on 10/06/2017, Rs.115/- on 14/07/2017, Rs.88.50P on 19/08/2017 and Rs.59.00 on 31/08/2017, totalling Rs.348.75P from this account. But the O. P. has not given any explanation why such inconsistent monthly deductions have been occurred, especially when from 08/04/2017 this account has balance lower than Rs.5,000/- and the first such deduction occurred on 10/06/2017. In the month of August O.P. deducted twice and for such deduction, he has not given any explanation both in written version and in the BNA filed. So, anyone can assume that either the bank authority has such power not to debit any amount due to non-maintenance of MAB for a particular month or they have whimsical attitude to debit for such non-maintenance. But that does not entitle a customer/consumer to claim refund of such debited amounts.
Now, let us consider the prayer of the complainant. His first prayer is to credit the amount which has been debited as penalty with interest. First of all this amount has been debited as non-maintenance charge of MAB, not as a penalty and such amount was debited for the complainant’s fault. He then demanded interest of fixed deposit in excess over Rs.1,000/- which is considered as an absurd demand as the complainant should be very well conversant with the rate of interest in Savings account. He demanded to allow him to maintain a Special Savings Account with cheque facility like Pension & other accounts and also demanded unlimited withdrawal facility in his account. These demands have no basis according to the submission of the O. P. and we feel that the complainant has no basic knowledge on the guidelines of maintaining a Savings Account.
Considering the aforesaid discussions, we are of the view that the O. P. have not practiced any unfair trade practice and not made any deficiency in rendering service to the Complainant and thus the instant complaint petition is liable to be dismissed with no cost.
Hence,
it is
ORDERED
That the Complaint Case No. CC/140/2019 is dismissed on contest for devoid of any merit and with no cost.
