CANARA BANK Vs. BINAY KUMAR JHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision petition seeks to impugn the order dated 12. 09. 2005 of the Bihar State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Patna (hereafter, the State Commission) in First Appeal No. 193 of 2004. By this order, the State Commission dismissed the appeal of the appellant bank (which was the Opposite Party (OP) before the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Madhubani (hereafter, the District Forum) and is the petitioner before us) and directed as under: however, the sanctioned loan was Rs. 47,500/ -. Hence the bank is directed to deposit within a month Rs. 47,500/- in the account of complainant for his grains business, failing which the appellant will have to pay damages @ Rs. 1,000/- per month beginning from February 2001 till the transfer of the loan amount to the account of complainant. The amount of compensation awarded by the learned District Forum is inadequate and it is raised to Rs. 5,000/- (Five thousand) only and the litigation cost is also raised to Rs. 1,000/- (One thousand) only. The compensation amount and litigation cost must be paid within thirty days from today, failing which interest @ 10% will be payable on this amount after expiry of one month from today till the date of payment. With above direction the appeal is dismissed (sic) devoid of merit.

(2.) BEFORE the District Forum, the case of the complainant (respondent before us) was that he is a physically challenged, educated person who was unemployed at the relevant time. He applied for and was selected by the District Industries Centre (DIC), Madhubani as a candidate under the Pradhan Mantri Rozgar Yojana (PMRY), given necessary training and recommended to the petitioner bank for loan assistance. On his application, the bank approved a project cost of Rs. 50,000/- against which it sanctioned a loan of Rs. 47,500/- in early September 2000 but did not release the loan despite the complainants compliance of the requirements stipulated by the bank and several requests, as well as follow-up by the office of the District Magistrate, Madhubani. This led the complainant to approach the District Forum, Madhubani. By its order dated 05. 02. 2004, the District Forum allowed the complaint and directed the OP bank to release the loan of Rs. 50,000/- to the complainant, pay him compensation of Rs. 2000/- for mental and physical harassment and litigation cost of Rs. 100/ -. The OP bank went up in appeal to the State Commission against this order of the District Forum, with the result already noted.

(3.) WE have heard the learned counsel for the parties and considered the documents produced before us. For better appreciation of the case on hand, it would be useful at this point to notice that the PMRY is a credit-linked-subsidy scheme sponsored and funded by the Central Government and implemented by the State Governments, for employment generation among the educated unemployed youth belonging to economically disadvantaged sections of the population in both urban and rural areas. The scheme is coordinated by the DICs in the States which select the candidates from among the applicants, give them training in self-employment under the scheme, help them with preparation of their individual project reports and then sponsor them to various participating bank branches in the District for extending loan for their projects of self-employment. The Central Government allocates the annual targets of employment generation to the individual States and accordingly provides them the grant funds for training, at normative rates. The Central Government also releases the amount of subsidy in instalments, through the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), to the participating banks. Both the project cost and the subsidy are subject to monetary ceilings, based on the category of candidates, nature of the projects and the region of the country, and the subsidy is generally limited to 15% of the project cost. The bank branches are expected to appraise the individual projects of the DIC-sponsored candidates from the standpoint of viability and only then sanction loans loan sanction can be refused if the project is not found viable. The candidates are required to deposit upfront margin money @ 5% of the project cost. The loan is released in instalments, depending on the progress of the project and accordingly the subsidy is credited, from out of the funds placed at the disposal of the banks, directly to the loan account of the beneficiary. The scheme requires the bank branch to ensure that the loan account is operated in such a manner that the selected loanee does not withdraw moneys out of the account, except to use them for the purposes of the sanctioned employment project. Needless to add, the loanee is not to be allowed by the bank branch to withdraw any part of the margin money from the account at any stage prior to completion of the project.