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Supreme Court directs SBI to pay ₹30 lakh to 80-yr old for bank locker theft
The bank in question – State Bank of India with its branch at Bokaro Steel City in Jharkhand had approached the top court after it was saddled with a ₹30 lakh compensation by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission on April 7 this year for the mental trauma caused to the customer Gopal Prasad Mahanty
Coming to the aid of an 80-year-old man who lost his life’s entire savings following a burglary at the bank where his cash and valuables were stored in a locker, the Supreme Court on Monday directed the bank to pay him a compensation of ₹30 lakh within two months.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and AS Oka said, “His entire life savings have been lost because he kept trust and faith in you. We cannot decide on individual loss but this old man has been harassed enough.”
The bank in question – State Bank of India having its branch at Bokaro Steel City in Jharkhand had approached the top court after it was saddled with the ₹30 lakh compensation by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) on April 7 this year for the mental trauma caused to the customer Gopal Prasad Mahanty. The burglary at the bank took place on the night of December 25, 2017.
The bench said, “We find that no interference with the NCDRC order of April 7, 2022 is called for. We dismiss the appeal in the above terms.” However, the Court kept the question of law open on whether bank can be held liable to compensate customers in the event of a burglary or theft at the branch.
The bank represented by advocate Sanjay Kapur said, “This order creates great difficulty for us as the bank does not know what things are lying in the locker.” This problem arose in the present case too as Mahanty along with another customer, Shashi Bhushan Kumar claimed that they lost gold jewelry assessed at ₹32 lakh, silver jewelry, cash and antiques valued at over ₹1.85 lakh, expensive wrist watches, bank and postal documents.
Appearing in person before the top court, Mahanty said, “I have lost all the savings of my lifetime.” Kapur told the Court that though the state consumer commission and NCDRC awarded ₹30 lakh compensation to Mahanty, there was no proof that he could provide of the articles claimed to be in the locker.
Following the theft, police arrested 16 persons and recovered small quantities of jewelry as the thieves had melted the remaining jewelry into gold biscuits or blocks. But the NCDRC had rejected the objection made by the bank by saying, “The very purpose for which the customer avails of the locker hiring facility is so that they may rest assured that their assets are being properly taken care of. But in the present case, the bank failed to take care of the assets/valuable articles of the complainants which were lying in te lockers provided by the bank.”
On its part, the bank claimed that it was not liable for the loss as it had complied with the directions issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) which require provision for Fire Detection and Alarm System, Security Alarm System and CCTV system in the entire premises inside and outside the branch. At the time of incident, all these systems were functional but the miscreants managed to neutralize the fire alarm, security alarm and CCTV one by one and their activities were recorded in the digital video recorders (DVR) that became useful for the police to nab the culprits.
The top court considered these issues and felt it appropriate to keep the legal question open while allowing the bank to deposit the compensation to provide succor to the aged petitioner.
