PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK BOMBAY Vs. K B SHETTY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case the State Commission by its order has directed that the appellant here and the Opposite Party before the State Commission, should pay to complainant Rs. 1,26,017/ - on account of the loss of ornaments which had been kept in the locker hired from the Appellant by the wife of the Respondent with interest at the rate of 18 per cent per annum from 21.4.1988 all the payment of the amount besides Rs. 1,000/ - as costs.

(2.) THE second ground of attack on the appeal is that the husband of the Respondent Complainant Mr. K.V. Shetty has no locus standi. The locker was last operated by the wife of the Respondent -Complainant and the ornaments said to have been lost, also belonged to her. According to the appellant the husband of Mrs. Shetty who did not operate the locker and did not own the ornaments has no locus standi in this case. The State Commission was therefore not competent to grant relief to a person who is not a party in the claim petition.

(3.) THE next ground of attack is that an opportunity to cross examine the respondent complainant regarding the value of the ornaments lost was not given to the appellant by the State Commission. He has also stressed that there is no evidence of the value of the ornaments lost by the respondent complainant and that the State Commission was not justified in relying on untested evidence regarding the value of the ornaments lost and that the State Commission denied the appellant Bank opportunity to cross examine the complainant. The appellant has therefore, emphasized that the Bank Officials were not guilty of any negligence inasmuch as the locker was opened by the lessee, the locker holder, the locker was locked exclusively by the locker holder with the key in her possession though it can be opened only with the help of the Master Key in the possession of the Bankers; that the respondent complainant had not produced any evidence regarding the gold ornaments actually kept in the locker before or after 21st April, 1988, the date on which the locker was last operated, that the valuation of the ornaments claimed to have been lost by the respondent complainant by values appointed by the Government of India on the 10th March, 1988 is no proof of the ornaments kept in the locker and that they were the same ornaments which were lodged in the locker. In short, the appellant Bank has suggested that it was a case of conspiracy hatched with an intent to defraud the Bank.