NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that breaking open a customer’s locker by a bank was a serious breach of trust and ordered United Bank of India to pay Rs 6 lakh compensation to an aggrieved person whose locker was broken open at a Kolkata branch more than 25 years ago.
The bank informed Amitabha Dasgupta in 1995 that the locker had been broken open and allotted to another person as the rent was not paid for 1993-94. When Dasgupta proved that he had paid rent for the previous year, the bank admitted its mistake. When the customer wanted back the seven pieces of jewellery deposited in the locker, the bank could return only two.
The district consumer forum awarded Rs 3 lakh as cost of jewellery to Dasgupta and an additional Rs 50,000 for mental agony, harassment and cost of litigation. But the state consumer forum as well as the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission awarded only Rs 30,000 compensation. Dasgupta appealed in the SC. A bench of Justices M M Shantanagoudar and Vineet Saran ordered the bank to pay Rs 6 lakh, which included Rs 1 lakh as litigation cost, to Dasgupta and ordered that Rs 5 lakh be recovered from erring officials.
Finding that there were no uniform rules governing lockers, the bench laid down 15-point guidelines. The SC said these guidelines would remain in force till the RBI framed new rules for locker operations in six months.