RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, June 17: The District consumer forum directed the Lalpur branch of Punjab National Bank to pay Rs 3 lakh as compensation to Pushpa Sharma, a resident of Anantapur under the Doranda police station area of Jharkhand capital.
The forum ordered compensation for deficiency in service on the part of the bank observing that the bank failed to ensure proper security to its locker causing the theft of ornaments worth Rs 8 lakh of Sharma from one of the lockers.
The order came eight years after the theft of the ornaments from the locker. An FIR was registered in this connection at Lalpur police station on January 27, 2015. The bank had lodged an FIR in this connection stating the miscreants broke open four lockers after entering the bank through a window when the bank was closed due to Republic Day.
Though the bank submitted in the forum that the relationship between Sharma and the bank was like ‘landlord’ and ‘tenant’ and not like a ‘bailer’ and ‘bailee’ and thus it has no responsibility for any content kept in the locker, the forum did not buy the argument.
The consumer forum, relying on the order of a Gujarat State Commission and Punjab & Haryana High Court observed that the ‘bank is responsible for latches in his service’ and directed the pay with compensation within 60 days failing which the forum ordered a penalty at the rate of seven per cent interest per annum for delay after mentioned time, Sharma’s lawyer Arvind Kumar Lall informed.
