SBI Held Deficient in Service for Sharing Customer's Account Details Without Consent

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NEW DELHI: The district consumer commission in UPs Lakhimpur Kheri, has held the State Bank of India (SBI) guilty of deficiency in service for sharing a customer's savings account details with his former employer without his consent.

What was the issue

The complainant, Pankaj Kumar Shukla, had earlier worked at Govind Sugar Mill. He held a savings account at SBI's Hargaon branch in Sitapur district. As per the complaint, while a labour dispute between Shukla and Govind Sugar Mill was pending before the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad high court, the mill submitted an affidavit that included the statement of his Hargaon account. Shukla said he had never given the bank permission to share this information with his employer, and that the disclosure caused him mental and physical distress. He also complained that his account statement contained wrong entries, which SBI later admitted and corrected through a letter dated April 29, 2022. But when he asked the bank in writing why his account details had been handed over to a third party without his consent, the Hargaon branch did not respond properly.

According to the order, SBI's main branch in Lakhimpur Kheri eventually admitted, in a reply dated July 21, 2022, that the statement had been shared with Govind Sugar Mill on the mill's request. However, SBI argued that Shukla was a former employee of the mill, and that the mill's salary account was also maintained with SBI's main branch in Lakhimpur Kheri, through which employees wages were paid. It said the mill had written to the bank on November 9, 2021 asking for the statement to reconcile its wage records, and that sharing it was lawful and not a deficiency in service. The bank further argued that Govind Sugar Mill should have been made a party to the case since the labour dispute between it and Shukla was still pending in the high court.

What did the commission say

The bench comprising President Abhimanyu Lal Srivastava, and members Dr Alok Kumar Sharma and Joohi Quddusi held SBI's Hargaon and main branches responsible for sharing Shukla's account details without his consent, in violation of banking norms. As per the court order, Shukla also had a different account at SBI's main branch in Lakhimpur Kheri, where his salary from the mill came in. There was no problem with that account. The issue was only about his personal savings account at the Hargaon branch — an account that had nothing to do with his salary or his employer. The commission pointed to banking rules, which say a bank cannot share a customer's personal information with anyone else unless the customer agrees to it. The order said Shukla's Hargaon account was purely personal and had no connection to his employer's money. So sharing its details with a third party without asking him first was wholly wrong. Both the Hargaon branch and the main branch were held responsible for ignoring banking rules, and the commission said this counted as poor service. Two other people named in the case — a senior SBI official from its corporate office and another from its Lucknow office — were let off, as the commission found they had nothing to do with the matter. The commission ordered the two SBI branches to jointly pay Shukla Rs 20,000 as compensation for the stress caused to him, plus 6 percent yearly interest from the day he filed the complaint (July 26, 2022) until the money is actually paid and Rs 5,000 to cover his legal costs The bench said that if SBI doesn't pay within the given time, Shukla can take legal steps to get the order enforced.