Sr citizen challenges fine over minimum balance in SBI
Vaibhav Ganjapure | tnn | Jan 31, 2019, 05:39 ISTNagpur: A senior citizen has approached the high court, challenging the State Bank of India’s decision to impose a cost for not maintaining minimum balance in their accounts.
The petitioner claimed State Bank of India (SBI) collected a staggering Rs 235 crore from customers between April and June 2018 by levying such harsh penalties for no fault of theirs.
A division bench comprising Ravi Deshpande and Vinay Joshi on Wednesday directed Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to inform it within 12 weeks about the maximum penalty a bank could levy on customers if they failed to maintain minimum balance.
Petitioner Anjan Kumar Chatterjee contended that SBI had accumulated non-performing assets (NPA) of a whopping Rs 1,88,098 crore till June last year. The banking behemoth, however, miserably failed to recover the public money swindled by unlawful activities of mostly bigwigs, who escape scrutiny. The list of such defaulters has the who’s who of the country, he said.
However, hefty penalties are being levied on common customers by SBI out of frustration, as it does have any other road map to recover their lost money in the form of NPAs from influential persons.
Chatterjee said the RBI issued a notification on July 1, 2015, where banks are allowed to fix their service charges by ignoring Section 35A of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949. SBI acted accordingly, which proved detrimental to the interests of its over 31 crore account holders.
The petitioner himself had to pay Rs 57.50 penalty in June and July each, after his minimum balance went below the stipulated limit. As per rules, the SBI account holder in metro cities need to maintain a minimum balance of Rs 3,000, while it’s Rs 2,000 for Tier-II cities like Nagpur and Pune. For rural areas, the minimum balance is Rs 1,000.
He also claimed that eight other PSU banks, whose schedule of service charges were checked by the petitioner, do not levy such unjust and unreasonable service charges. Since SBI is the biggest of them, its actions are likely to trickle down to other banks, which may inconvenience a majority of India’s population, he contended.
Chatterjee prayed for relief by cancelling such harsh and unjust service charges levied by SBI.
The petitioner claimed State Bank of India (SBI) collected a staggering Rs 235 crore from customers between April and June 2018 by levying such harsh penalties for no fault of theirs.
A division bench comprising Ravi Deshpande and Vinay Joshi on Wednesday directed Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to inform it within 12 weeks about the maximum penalty a bank could levy on customers if they failed to maintain minimum balance.
Petitioner Anjan Kumar Chatterjee contended that SBI had accumulated non-performing assets (NPA) of a whopping Rs 1,88,098 crore till June last year. The banking behemoth, however, miserably failed to recover the public money swindled by unlawful activities of mostly bigwigs, who escape scrutiny. The list of such defaulters has the who’s who of the country, he said.
However, hefty penalties are being levied on common customers by SBI out of frustration, as it does have any other road map to recover their lost money in the form of NPAs from influential persons.
Chatterjee said the RBI issued a notification on July 1, 2015, where banks are allowed to fix their service charges by ignoring Section 35A of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949. SBI acted accordingly, which proved detrimental to the interests of its over 31 crore account holders.
The petitioner himself had to pay Rs 57.50 penalty in June and July each, after his minimum balance went below the stipulated limit. As per rules, the SBI account holder in metro cities need to maintain a minimum balance of Rs 3,000, while it’s Rs 2,000 for Tier-II cities like Nagpur and Pune. For rural areas, the minimum balance is Rs 1,000.
He also claimed that eight other PSU banks, whose schedule of service charges were checked by the petitioner, do not levy such unjust and unreasonable service charges. Since SBI is the biggest of them, its actions are likely to trickle down to other banks, which may inconvenience a majority of India’s population, he contended.
Chatterjee prayed for relief by cancelling such harsh and unjust service charges levied by SBI.
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