ALLAHABAD BANK Vs. RANVEER SINGH BHADOURIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal is by opposite parties -the Allahabad Bank and its officers who have been directed to pay to respondent -complainant a sum of Rs. 2,00,000 with interest and cost, by District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Bhopal vide order dated 23.2.2004 in Case No. 423/2000.

(2.) THE aforesaid amount has been awarded on the finding that the appellant -bank was deficient in its service in the matter of providing due protection to the locker hired by respondent from the appellant. It is no more in dispute that on 18.5.1998 when the respondent came to operate the locker and put his key in the locker in presence of appellant s representative Mr. Mohanlal Verma, it was found that the locker had already been opened and its lock was missing altogether. The locker was totally empty. Earlier the locker was operated by the complainant on 18.1.1997. Obviously the locker was tampered and its lock removed on or after 18.1.1997 and before 18.5.1998. A report of the incident was lodged by the complainant with the appellant -bank as also with the local police (PS Habibganj) the same day. The complainant also provided list of stolen ornaments which he claimed were kept in the locker. He estimated his loss at around Rs. 3,00,000/ -. When the appellant -bank did not settle his claim, he approached the Forum below under Section 12 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 . The claim was resisted by the appellant -bank who tried to put the entire blame on the complainant and it was alleged that the complainant while operating the locker on 18.1.1997 seemed to have himself removed the lock thereof, emptied it and closed its shutter, thus preparing ground for lodging false claim against the appellant. This defence story of the appellant has, however, been rejected and in our opinion rightly, by the Forum below. The story not only appeared improbable but impossible too. In the first place, there is no evidence direct or indirect to substantiate the charge. The respondent at the relevant time was a senior officer (Additional Housing Commissioner) of the M.P. Housing Board, a State Government owned company and it looked wholly unnatural for him to have behaved like a professional criminal.

(3.) THERE was gap of about one and half years between the two operations of the locker. It is nobody s case that the complainant had any access to the locker or the locker room during this intervening period. Needless to say that hundreds of people including officers of the appellant -bank must have had entered the room and operated other lockers during this period. It looked wholly improbable rather impossible that the mischief allegedly committed by the complainant on 18.1.1997 would go unnoticed by the officers of the appellant -bank all these seventeen months.