It has slapped a price of Rs 1 lakh on Citibank for the harassment of Sarwar Raza, who was even threatened by restoration brokers when he refused to pay the dues that arose from unauthorised or fraudulent transactions on his card. The financial institution individually tendered an unconditional apology and reversed the costs as soon as its conduct got here beneath judicial scrutiny.
“The charging of late cost of price, curiosity, and so forth., in such circumstances when prospects have lodged complaints and that too with out resolving the identical shall not be permissible,” Justice Prathiba M Singh noticed. The courtroom flagged the “lengthy and arduous journey {that a} bank card holder has to bear when any fraudulent transaction takes place on a bank card” and burdened that banks, together with regulator RBI, should “be sure that harmless bank card holders usually are not made to bear harassment and frustration by incessant emails, messages and calls for”.
In Jan 2022, Raza was issued a bank card by Citibank, and one other in April with out his consent. When he complained, the financial institution allegedly assured him that if not activated, the cardboard would lie dormant. However the financial institution then despatched him a invoice of over Rs 75,000, which included an unauthorised transaction. Whereas the lawyer filed a criticism with the financial institution and police, he additionally needed to method the RBI ombudsman because the financial institution, after initially softening its stand, stored billing the disputed quantity with late charges and different prices.
The RBI ombudsman had summarily rejected Raza’s criticism, first on the only real floor that he’s a lawyer and subsequent as a result of one subject within the criticism type was left empty. “The rejection of complaints… on account of such technical causes exhibits that the functioning of the ombudsman of RBI just isn’t extra consumer-friendly,” the courtroom famous, ordering RBI to file an affidavit exhibiting steps taken to make sure the complaints usually are not rejected just by a mechanised course of.
If a criticism is lastly rejected, “the identical shall bear a second-level human supervision course of by educated authorized personnel, for instance, retired judicial officers, legal professionals, and so forth., who’re legally educated for a minimum of 10 years, in order that complaints usually are not rejected on account of small errors”, it added.HC additionally requested RBI to ensure all banks and monetary establishments clearly replicate on their respective web sites the hierarchy of all officers coping with client complaints in a flowchart.
(With inputs from TOI)