A district consumer commission has directed a bank to pay its customers, an NRI couple, Rs 3.78 lakh that they paid while transferring their loan as the bank couldn’t trace the original documents. The amount will be paid with 7% interest from 2010 till date of realisation.
Additionally, Rs 40,000 has been awarded towards mental agony and litigation cost, to be paid within two months of the order. The order dated November 3 was passed by in-charge president RG Wankhade and member Preethi Chamikutty of the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (Mumbai Suburban) on a complaint by Suresh D Bhatia and Kavita S Bhatia against ICICI Bank Ltd. The Bhatias are NRIs with business in Dubai and residences in Goregaon.
They had approached the ICICI bank for Rs1.50 crore loan to pay for two flats they had purchased. In return, they had deposited their original purchase agreement for both flats as required by the bank. As the interest rate was high, the complainants decided to transfer their loan to State Bank of India (SBI), which had a relatively lower interest rate. SBI asked for original loan agreement and original purchase agreement to be deposited with them.
On confirmation of the documents with ICICI, complainants asked SBI to remit the balance loan amount of Rs1.43 crore to ICICI. However, ICICI failed to return the original title deed after receiving the money despite several reminders, as they said they had misplaced the documents. Complainants felt they were deliberately kept in the dark till ICICI got the amount from SBI.
On knowing of the situation, SBI asked them to execute a registered mortgage with respect to two flats in favour of SBI, and bear stamp duty and registration charges. The complainant paid Rs71,500 for the same. During thehearing,the Bhatias claimed they paid an additional amountfor registration and extra Rs1.5 lakh to complete all formalities. They incurred additional expenses to travel from Dubai to Mumbai several times. After some time, the complainants said the interest rates of SBI became higher, so they moved their loan along with another top-up loan to HSBC and back again to SBI when HSBC’s interest rates jumped over SBI’s.
Later, ICICI informed them that they managed to trace the original documents. ICICI countered the complaint stating that they had apologised to the Bhatias for the inconvenience caused and offered to pay charges and expenses, using their own personnel to obtain duplicate copies of documents from proper authorities, which the complainants allegedly constantly refused only with the view to earn money out of litigation. Had Bhatias co-operated, all documents would have been with them in 10 days, said ICICI.
