SBI customer? What will you do if you discover that a lot of money has been withdrawn from your account but you haven’t received any SMS alert from the bank?

You may panic or you may rush to the bank to find who got your money out. Govind Lal Sharma, a senior citizen and SBI customer, did the latter but faced further disappointment.

However, Sharma didn’t stop. He fought against the bank. He has almost got the money back along with interest after 5 years. Read further if you are interested to know more about this real story.

The incident

Sharma holds a pension account with SBI in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. On 2nd February 2019, he received a call informing him of daily debits of Rs 40,000 from his account between 4th of February 2019 and 12th of February 2019. Total Rs 3.6 lakh was withdrawn even as Sharma’s ATM card was safe in his possession. Further, he didn’t receive an SMS alert from the bank about withdrawals.

Sharma visited the bank on 13th February 2019 with his ATM card and Passbook. He found that Rs 3.6 lakh was withdrawn without his authorization in multiples of Rs. 40,000.

Sharma submitted a written complaint to SBI Branch Manager on the same day and received an assurance that the matter would be investigated within 15 days. The SBI customer also filed a complaint in Police Station, leading to registration of an FIR.

In his complaint, Sharma deemed not receiving any SMS notifications of the transactions as deficiency in the Bank’s service. However, he failed to recover any amount even after a month. He didn’t even receive a satisfactory response from the bank.

Also Read: How a Woman Lost Rs 2 Crore LIC Claim After Husband Died of Heart Attack

After receiving no proper response from the bank, the SBI customer filed a complaint before the Banking Ombudsman on 19th March 2019. The Ombudsman, however, did not issue any specific directions to the bank. Displeased, Sharma filed a complaint before the District Consumer Forum in Jodhpur.

What District Forum and State Forum said

On 2nd December 2021, the District Forum directed the bank to pay Rs 3.6 lakh along with 9% interest per annum from the date of filing complaint till the date of realization. The forum also directed the bank to pay Rs 10,000 towards mental harassment and Rs 5000 towards litigation costs. The bank appealed against this order before the State Commission but lost vide order dated 28th July 2023.

NCDRC rules in favour of SBI customer

SBI challenged State Commission’s order before the National Consumer Disputes Resolution Commission (NCDRC). However, the NCDRC also dismissed the bank’s plea due to following reasons.

• Both state and district Fora decided in favour of complainant (Sharma) that there was a deficiency in service on the part of the bank as he had lost an amount to the tune of Rs. 3,60,000 due to fraudulent withdrawal of money by some unauthorised person from his Account.
• At the relevant point of time, a huge cyber-crime wave was on across the country. At that time, by way of some tampering by Cyber criminals/hackers, cards of innocent account holders would get cloned after being inserted in the ATM machines, due to installation of some malicious software in the same. Similarly, even the PIN Code could be monitored by way of installing hidden cameras above the Keyboard of the machines.
• The Bank didn’t make any direct allegation saying the SBI customer had withdrawn the amounts himself and then blamed the Bank.
• No CCTV footage of the relevant transactions of withdrawal, which had occurred far away from Sharma’s place were available. Even though the SBI customer had reported to the Bank within 11 days from the date of first withdrawal.
• While the bank contended that after each withdrawal, the complainant was invariably informed about it by SMS text message. But such messages did not reach him on account of some “Technical Issues”.

“…had the ‘Technical Issues’ had not been allowed to occur with due diligence, the factum of fraudulent withdrawals from the Complainant’s Account would have promptly come to his notice, and he would have been in a position to make the complaint even more promptly,” it said.

Note: The NCDRC order in favour of the SBI customer may be challenged in the Supreme Court within a period of 30 days.

Disclaimer: The above story is for informational purposes only, based on a recent NCDRC order in State Bank of India & Others vs Govind Lal Sharma. The order dated 6th February 2024 was uploaded on NCDRC’s website on 7th February 2024.