Daijiworld Media Network – Udupi (HB/SP)

Udupi, Dec 27: The general perception among the public is that public sector undertakings (PSU) like banks would work by the rules and would be less harsh in penalizing its customers when customers are not at fault. However, in a shocking incident that has come to the fore has put one Mythreyi Raj from Karasrgod, an MBA graduate, in a tricky situation.

Mythreyi is being pestered by Syndicate Bank to repay an education loan raised for her education from its Mulky branch. This loan had been raised by her father, the late Arvind Joshi, under ‘Syndvidya scheme’ in 2009. Arvind, former principal of Vijaya College, Mulky, died in 2011 when Mythreyi was at the fag end of her course.

According to RBI guidelines, covering education loans under insurance is mandatory. Following the rules, Mythreyi vaguely remembers that her father too had taken an insurance policy in United India Insurance Company to cover this education loan.

Now Mythreyi has no documents with her relating to her education loan. She had raised a number of queries to the bank about the loan. What was the loan amount granted to her? What was the amount disbursed? What are the details of the insurance policy taken on the loan? These were few of the questions which Mythreyi put forward seeking clarification from the bank. But none of them were provided.

On September 20, 2012, Maitreyi received a notice from the bank asking to repay a part of her loan liability which stood at Rs 6,05,676 on that date. The bank had asked her to repay Rs 23,800 that had fallen due immediately. She responded to the letter and sought the information she had already asked for many times earlier. In spite of receiving 13 notices over a period of five years, she did not get response to her queries. Then, she was asked to attend Lok Adalat for the settlement of the matter. Now she owes the bank Rs 12,37,338. Another intriguing feature of the correspondence was that the notices from the banks never contained any stamps or signatures of the concerned authorities.

“After my marriage, my mother started receiving threatening calls and bank faculties come to home demanding repayment of the loan amount. My mother lives alone and has no one to protect her. She has no knowledge about banks nor their loans. It has been found that the insurance company also had not issued any policy in my name in 2009,” says a worried Maitreyi.

“A premium of Rs 4,350 had been debited from my account towards insurance premium at the time of sanction of loan. Going by the amount of the premium, the principal amount of the loan must be Rs 4,35,000. I have lost the faith I had in Syndicate Bank’s staff now. They had also called me to the court for a hearing on November 14, 2016. I am fed up with the negligent attitude of bank. I would like to approach the court for legal remedy. I have also written a letter to central finance minister, Arun Jaitely, through Human Rights Protection Foundation (HRPF),” she adds.

Ravindranath Shanbhag, president of Human Rights Protection Foundation Udupi, addressing media persons on Tuesday, December 26 said, “several questions remain unanswered. When the matter was taken up with the bank and United India Insurance company, it came to light that no policy was ever taken in the name of Maitreyi or her father. So where did the premium amount debited to the account go? Did someone misappropriate it? Has this come to the notice of the bank during its annual audits? Did they take any action? I have written a letter to union finance ministry about Syndicate Bank’s involvement with this fraud and misappropriation,” he stated. He added that a complaint about this has also been made to Lok Adalat.

Shanbhag further mentioned about another mistake of the bank, pointing out that the notices from the bank never contained any rubber stamp or signatures of the concerned authorities. He urged the concerned department to conduct an investigation. He also said that he has been receiving such complaints of financial scandals from many consumers, details of which he would reveal soon.