LI Network
Published on: December 05, 2023 at 01:20 IST
In a recent ruling, the District Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission (DCDRC) in Delhi has directed the Post Office at Mayur Vihar to pay ₹15,000 as compensation to a banking customer for its failure to adequately maintain his Know Your Customer (KYC) details [Case: Kamaljit Chibber v Post Master].
The issue arose when a cheque issued by the customer to transfer funds from his bank account was dishonored due to the absence of signature details in the bank’s database.
The consumer forum, led by President SS Malhotra and members Rashmi Bansal and Ravi Kumar, found that the information was provided by the customer when he initially opened the bank account.
The DCDRC concluded that the bank was negligent in not properly maintaining the KYC database after receiving the customer’s details. Consequently, the consumer court ordered the Post Office to compensate the customer with ₹10,000 and ₹5,000 as litigation costs, along with 6 percent annual interest from November 5, 2019, when the cheque was dishonored.
The DCDRC emphasized that the Post Office has a legal obligation to update customer signatures at the time of account opening and rejected the excuse that no transactions had occurred in the account for almost 2 years and 4 months.
The order stated, “This does not give any right to OP to not properly maintain the account opened with it and not to update the KYC of the account holders.”
The case originated when the customer, holding two accounts with the post office, attempted to transfer funds by issuing a ₹1 lakh cheque.
The bank dishonored the cheque, citing the absence of the customer’s signature in their database.
The Post Office requested the customer to provide his signature details again, but instead, he filed a complaint alleging negligence and potential fraudulent activity.
The customer contended that he had already provided his signature during the KYC process years ago and suspected that another signature might have been uploaded to the bank’s database.
The complaint was also reported to the Ministry of Communication, raising concerns about mischief, corruption, and criminal activity by the bank.
The Post Office argued that the customer was exaggerating the issue and seemed uninterested in resolving it.
They claimed that during an office shift in 2018, the customer’s details might have been inadvertently misplaced. The consumer court, however, rejected these submissions, deeming the Post Office’s actions as negligent.
In its order dated November 2, the DCDRC stated, “The complainant/customer has suffered inconvenience, harassment, mental agony because of the deficient service of the post office, and he cannot be forced to accept deficient service.”
The commission awarded exemplary compensation to the complainant considering the extent of the bank’s negligence and directed the Post Office to pay the deducted amount of ₹296 from the customer’s account when the cheque was dishonored.
