BRIEF FACTS OF THE CASE :

• The complainant had regularly been using his credit card and making punctual payments for the same. The complainant received a call from the bank on 12/12/2002 stating that a sum of Rs. 43,628.93 was to be paid immediately through cheque by 13/12/2002.
• The complainant informed that he would drop the cheque with the said amount in the cheque drop box. However the caller reciprocated that by doing so the payment would be delayed and hence he is deputing a person to collect the cheque from the office of the complainant.
• The complainant said that he was going out on a business related trip for 2-3 days therefore he would leave the cheque at the reception desk. However, the said cheque was not collected until 16-12-2002 and it was only collected on 17-12-2002, upon the complainants calling the bank.
• After this, the complainant received the next card statement dated 13-12-2002 from the bank with a sum of Rs.2513.86 as interest and Rs.328.20 as late fee charges. Later, on 13-01-2003 the complainant received a credit card statement showing an outstanding of Rs. 5690.42.
• The complainant started to receive phone calls at odd hours from the recovery agents persuading him to pay the outstanding amount to which the complainant agreed to, provided the bank waived off the interest rate and the late fee charges, which was levied for no mistake of the complainant, but the bank refused to do so.
• In November 2003, the lawyer of the bank called the complainant, and suggested a settlement which stated that the complainant had to pay the interest and late charges for a period of 10 days which amounted to Rs.3200 instead of Rs.5750 to avoid any kind of acrimony against him, to which he agreed to.
• On 14-12-2003 the complainant received another credit card statement amounting to Rs.2550.45 as an outstanding and it was followed up by harassment of the complainant and his family members from the bank, which included threatening calls at odd hours and working hours. This led to loss of reputation and mental agony to the complainant.
• The complainant received defamatory letters dated 28-01-2004,26-02-2004,05-03-2004,26-03-2004 and 27-04-2004 from the O.P. bank.
• The complainant finally served a legal notice dated 30-04-2004 upon the O.P. bank and also sent a copy of the same to the R.B.I.
• The complainant received a reply dated 02-06-2004 from the advocate of the O.P. bank admitting that the complainant had paid the amount of Rs.3200 on 27-11-2003 in full & final settlement. However, the complainant continued to receive recovery calls from the bank’s lawyer.

JUDGEMENT IN BRIEF:

After taking into account all the facts and the circumstances and the status of the complainant and the damage caused to him by the way he was treated in a crude and shabby way, a compensation of RS.50,000 was awarded to him apart from the litigation charges which amounted to Rs.10,000. The the court cautioned the banks to refrain from such illegal and derogatory practices which cause damage to the civilized society and no person can behave in such way in a democratic country. And banks should refrain from such recovery methods that cause mental agony or defames a person and causes damage to his reputation.

LEARNINGS FROM THE CASE:

From the above case it is evident that the bank, in the name of “recovery agents”, hired henchmen for the sake of collecting payments indulging in illegal activities such as abusing, harassing, and threatening the customers, causing a great mental agony and damage to the person’s reputation and tarnishing his name and defaming him in front of his colleagues and his family. The bank had infringed on the basic rights such as the right to privacy (Article.21), and violating Sec.503 of IPC which is criminal intimidation. The judgement corrected the injustice and sent a stern warning to the bank against using strong arm tactics to recover money.