NCDRC asks Kerala Coop bank to pay Rs5L for losing documents

The apex consumer commission has directed a cooperative bank in Kerala to pay Rs five lakh as compensation to a man for losing his property's original title deed which was pledged with it.
The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) also directed the Mayyanad Regional Co-operative Bank to pay Rs 10,000 as litigation cost to Kerala resident Ebrahimkutty.
"The loss of the title deed has been fully established from the material on record... It is ordered that the bank shall be liable to pay a sum of Rs 5 lakh to the complainant for the loss of the title deed along with Rs 10,000 as cost of litigation," the NCDRC bench headed by Presiding Member B C Gupta said.

According to the complaint filed by Ebrahimkutty, he availed a loan from the Mayyanadu Regional Cooperative Bank, mortgaging his property by pledging his original title deed.
The complaint said he repaid his loan, but the bank did not return the original title deed and, in 1999, it orally informed him that the original deed was missing. It also claimed it was searching to recover the same.
However, loan was advanced to Ebrahimkutty a number of times thereafter and was finally closed on September 8, 2012, and an endorsement to that fact was made by the bank in the loan passbook. Later the bank informed him that the title deed was lost during the shifting of its building premises.

The state consumer commission had awarded a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to Ebrahimkutty against which the bank approached the NCDRC.

The bank claimed that it was mandatory on the part of the complainant to have filed the complaint within 2 years of the cause of action, but the complaint was filed after 12 years of the accrual of cause of action, that is in 2012.
The counsel for the bank also said that Ebrahimkutty had not been able to show if he had suffered any damage on account of the title deed having been lost.
The NCDRC reduced the state commission's compensation amount to Rs five lakh.