INDIAN BANKS ASSOCIATION Vs. ARCHANA KAMATH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE are two revision petitions against the common order of the 26th of August, 1993 passed by the State Commission of Maharashtra in Appeal No. 212/ 91.

(2.) THE respondents were the complainants before the District Forum and would be referred to as complainants in our order. Likewise, the revision petitioners were opposite parties before the District Forum and will be described as such.

(3.) THE State Commission held that there is no justification for levying Rs. 1 per cheque as printing charges, that this levy could not be possibly to discourage indiscriminate use of cheque facility as such consumers (account holders) are negligible in number and in any case, this levy could not be imposed on customers who were not misusing the current account facility indiscriminately, that the facility of MICR cheques etc, is a facility made available to the consumers by all the banks since long and the intention of charging Rs. 1 was not made known to all the customers before hand. In this connection, the State Commission has observed that "We also feel that if such an action of charging Rs.l is allowed to be justified on the part of the bank, then there would be no end on the part of the banks to charge any amount for printing purposes because the Bank has to maintain Pass Books, Ledger Books, Scrolls and so many other stationeries and all these expenses will be again saddled on the consumers, on the analogy and logic which is behind charging Rs.l per leaf a cheque."