It took four long years for a local customer of the State Bank of India (SBI) to get his complaint addressed by the Puri District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum.
Forum president in-charge Rajeswar Rao Naidu and member Rajashree Panda found the SBI evening branch of the city guilty of deficiency of service and directed the bank to pay the funds to the customer with interest along with the cost of litigation.
Prasanta Mahapatra, a senior journalist, has a savings bank account with the SBI evening branch situated near the lion’s Gate area of Shree Jagannath Temple. On 20-5-2010, he had deposited a cheque of Rs60,000 in the SBI evening branch. The bank sent the cheque for clearance to SBI, Antop Hill branch of Mumbai for clearance. Since then for six months, Mahapatra approached the bank umpteen times to get the funds credited to his SB account as he was in urgent need of the money for medical emergency. The bank officials paid little attention even to his two written complaints over the issue.
Mahapatra filed a complaint with the Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum alleging harassment and deficiency in service by the bank. The then forum president NK Pattnaik after serving notices to the bank did not proceed over the case as the bank did not appear in the case in the forum. It happened after the Government placed RR Naidu as the president in-charge of the forum. After four years, the forum passed the order ex-parte.
The forum held that the complainant comes within the definition of a consumer and the bank has been found deficient of service to its customer. The forum ordered the bank to credit Rs60,000 with 18-per cent interest from the date of deposit of the cheque till credit of the funds into the customer’s account, besides a litigation cost of Rs3,000.