Arun Bhatiya vs HDFC Bank & Ors.
Background
The appellant and his father held a joint Fixed Deposit of Rs. 75 lakh at HDFC Bank's Agra branch. The appellant claimed that on maturity, both jointly instructed the bank to renew the FD for ten days, but the bank instead credited the entire Rs. 77 lakh maturity amount to the father's individual account at the father's request, despite the appellant's written instruction not to transfer the funds to any single-person account. The State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (SCDRC) refused to entertain his consumer complaint, holding it was really a father-son civil dispute and not a genuine consumer complaint, and the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) later dismissed his appeal as withdrawn (on his counsel's instructions, which the appellant said he never gave) and rejected his review application.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that a person availing banking services is a "consumer" under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, and the wide definitions of "service" and "deficiency" under the Act clearly cover banking services. The SCDRC erred in treating the dispute as merely a private father-son matter and relegating the appellant to a civil suit, because the appellant's actual complaint, that the bank wrongly credited proceeds of a joint FD to only one signatory's account contrary to instructions, was squarely a claim of deficiency of service against the bank, not a claim against his father. The Court also found the NCDRC should have entertained the appellant's review application given his sworn statement that he never instructed his lawyer to withdraw the appeal. It set aside both NCDRC orders, restored the appeal, and directed the NCDRC to decide the entire dispute on merits within four months, keeping all rights and defences of both sides open.
Lesson Learnt
A dispute between joint account holders and their bank over how service was rendered remains a genuine "consumer" dispute under consumer protection law even if it also touches on a disagreement between the joint holders themselves; consumer fora cannot dismiss such complaints on maintainability grounds without examining the actual service-deficiency claim against the bank.