Delhi HC stays fine of Rs 50 lakh on ICICI Bank

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday stayed the Delhi State Consumer Commission's order that imposed a whopping fine of Rs 50 lakh on ICICI Bank for employing goons to recover loans from its consumers.
   
Justice Pradeep Nadrajog stayed the fine on a petition filed by ICICI Bank against Consumer Commission order which had deplored the practice of the banks intimidating the consumers to pay the instalments of loans.
   
The court also stayed the Commission's direction to ICICI to pay Rs 5 lakh to a consumer who was allegedly beaten up by the recovery agents, who also took away the complainant's car.
  
The consumer commission had on November 5 passed the order on a complaint by Tapan Bose, whose car financed by the Bank was taken away by some recovery agents after beating up his friend's son with iron rods on January eight, leading to serious injuries on his skull and other parts of the body.

ICICI, however, had refused to own up the act on the ground that agents were employed separately by the recovery agency and it could not held culpable for any such act as it had asked the agency to conduct themselves in accordance with the law.

The Commission rejected the bank's argument and said that for every illegal acts of the collection agency, the bank is directly liable as the consumer had no concern with an internal agreement between the bank and any other agency.