E-Paper
11 years on, consumer body asks petitioner to approach court
The complaint approached the commission over theft of ₹1.3-cr valuables from bank locker
It took 11 years for the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) to ask a Mulund resident, who had approached the panel in 2009 stating that her ornaments worth Rs1.30 crore were stolen from the locker of a nationalised bank, to approach a civil court with her grievances.
“This matter, as discernible from the material on record and from specificities of the evidence involved, is not such as can be aptly adjudicated on merit in summary proceedings by a quasi-judicial forum like the consumer commission,” said NCDRC presiding member Dinesh Singh.
NCDRC asked the petitioner, Saroj Dasani, to approach the civil court concerned, saying the matter is best undertaken by a civil court for its apt adjudication on merit and to do justice to it, as the matter required recording of extensive oral and documentary evidence.
Dasani in her complaint had said that she had opened a locker at the Mulund (West) branch of the bank in June 2008, and had kept some important papers and valuables like diamond ornaments in the locker.
When she visited the bank a month later, she had forgotten the keys to the locker on the desk of the bank’s locker in-charge. When she visited the bank the next time, she had found that her valuables were there in the locker.
However, on November 17, 2008, when she visited the bank again and opened the locker, Dasani found the locker empty, said her complaint. She immediately lodged a complaint in writing with the branch manager.
The complainant believed that someone had made duplicate keys of her locker when she had forgotten the original set at the bank, and had used them to steal her valuables.
She stated that the locker cannot be opened without the master key, which is in the possession of a bank officer and hence, the bank was fully responsible for the theft of her valuables worth Rs1.30 crore.
The bank had responded to the complaint, contending that the locker was also being operated independently by the complainant’s husband. The bank had also asserted that the matter required adjudication of issues that involve disputed questions of facts and therefore, the matter should not be adjudged in summary proceedings before the consumer commission, but by a civil court.
This year on December 8, NCDRC accepted the bank’s contention and returned the complaint, with liberty to the complainant to knock doors of the competent civil court with her grievances.
