ICICI Bank fined Rs 50 lakh: Its recovery agents had beaten up man with iron rod

Express news service
Posted online: Tuesday , November 06, 2007 at 12:00:00
Updated: Tuesday , November 06, 2007 at 01:47:0

New Delhi, November 5 The State Consumer Commission has fined ICICI Bank Rs 50 lakh and ordered it to pay Rs 5 lakh to a borrower whose friend was beaten with iron rods and left bleeding on the road by recovery agents.

The commission described the bank’s conduct as “abominable” and in violation of orders of the Supreme Court. The fine will be held in a fund meant to provide complainants free legal aid.

In his complaint, Tapan Bose, a resident of Pandav Nagar, said he borrowed Rs 3.4 lakh from the bank in 2005 to buy a Maruti Swift. He paid monthly installments regularly. When three of his post-dated installment cheques bounced, he went to the bank and cleared the dues in cash. The bank never returned the bounced cheques.

Later Bose was unable to pay four installments, but the bank did not send him notice. Its recovery agents struck on January 8, when Bose and his friend’s son Vinod were visiting the Delhi District Cricket Association Club on Bahadur Shah Zafar Road.

Bose said he went into the club but Vinod preferred to stay back and listen to music on the car radio. He said he’d barely entered the club when he got a missed call from Vinod on his cellphone. When he went to check what it was about, he found the car missing and Vinod lying on the road bleeding. Vinod was admitted to LNJP Hospital, where he spent two weeks. In his statement to police, Vinod said a man knocked on the car window and asked him to reverse the vehicle. When he asked why, the man said he was from ICICI Bank, pulled him out and started beating him up. He said the last thing he remembered was being beaten up by three-four men and hit on the head with an iron rod. Police recovered the car from the bank’s godown. It was restored to Bose on a court order.

The bank told the commission that it had engaged Elegance Collxns to deal with loan defaulters. Justice JD Kapoor took the bank to task for “taking the law into its hands, causing multiple and serious injuries, and humiliating and insulting the man in public.”

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