Case: BANK OF INDIA Vs. M/S. BRINDAVAN AGRO INDUSTRIES PVT. LTD

2. The respondent (for short, Consumer) was maintaining an account with the appellant Bank at its branch in Agra. The Consumer applied for a loan on 15th October, 2011. The Consumer sought the following credit facilities:1. Enhancement of Working Capital Limit from Rs. 10 crore to Rs. 20 crore;2. Sanction of ECB/SCL/INR term loan of Rs. 40 crore;3. Sanction of LC Limit of Rs. 25 crore3. As per the Bank, the application submitted by the Consumer was handed over to Credit Processing Unit (for short, CPU) at New Delhi on 4th November, 2011 pending submission of the valuation/search report of the properties to be mortgaged and Techno Economic Viability (for short, TEV) study. The officers of the Bank visited the site but on 6th December, 2011, the Consumer revised its credit requirement as under:1. Enhancement of Working Capital Limit from Rs. 10 crore to Rs. 20 crore;2. Sanction of Term loan of Rs. 40 crore in the form of ECB;3. Sanction of LC Limit of Rs. 25 crorefor deferred payment credit for 3 years on withdrawn basis;4. LC Limit of Rs. 4 crore for import of raw material from time to time4. Such request was also forwarded to CPU immediately. However, soon thereafter, on 17th December, 2011, the Consumer again revised its credit requirement reducing the LC limit to Rs.19 crores from Rs.25 crores. Such revised request is as under:1. Term Loan in form of ECB for Rs. 40 Crore2. Working capital limit enhancement from Rs. 10 Crore to 20 Crore3. LC Limit of Rs. 19 Crore Against Deferred payment credit of machine purchasing from SACMI for the Period of Three (3) years on drawn down Basis4. Regular LC Limit of Rs. 4 Crore for time to time import of Machinery/Raw Etc5. On 30th December, 2011, the Bank debited the account of the Consumer by an amount of Rs.27,41,165/- being 50% of the applicable processing fees including the TEV study and service tax charges. On 24th January, 2012, the final proposal for sanction was submitted by the CPU at New Delhi to the Head Office at Mumbai which had the requisite authority to approve the sanction of such high value loans. But, on 9th February, 2012, the Consumer objected to the deduction of processing fees as the Bank could only do so after the loan was sanctioned. The Consumer sought a refund of the said amount on the ground of suffering losses, owing to the alleged delay of the Bank in sanctioning the credit facilities and that the Consumer had got the credit facilities from other banks. Such request was reiterated vide e-mail dated 22nd February, 2012. However, on 17th March, 2012, the credit facilities were sanctioned within three months from the final modified request. When the officers of the Bank approached the Consumer with the sanction letter for the credit facilities requested, the Consumer showed the sanction letters issued by other Banks i.e. HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank6. On 6th August, 2013, the Consumer filed an application under Section 17 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (for short, Act) . This application which was allowed by the SCDRC on 13th July, 2016 directing the Bank to pay a sum of Rs.27,41,165/- along with interest @9% from the date of filing the complaint till the date of payment. The appeal before the NCDRC against such order remained unsuccessful.

Court's reasoning:
16. We find that the reasoning given by the learned NCDRC is de hors the proposal as well as Circular of the Bank and is, in fact, based on ipse dixit of the NCDRC. The Consumer had sought a waiver of 50% of all charges in the request letter dated 15th October, 201117. The total charges, thus, payable were Rs.68,83,000/- plus service tax. Even if, the 50% concession is conceded to the Consumer, still the amount to be charged is much more than Rs.27,47,165/-. As per the tariff mentioned in the sanction letter, TEV charges are Rs.18,25,000/- whereas processing charges are to the tune of Rs.49,63,000/-. Obviously, the Consumer had to pay charges for availing credit facilities of which the Consumer was in knowledge of and, therefore, sought a waiver of 50% of the charges. It is the Consumer who revised the requirement of credit facilities three times and the Bank sanctioned credit facilities on 17th March, 2012 i.e. within almost three months from the final modified request18. The Consumer admittedly was an old customer of the Bank who applied to avail credit facilities of more than Rs.40 crores and it is unbelievable that it was unaware of the procedure and the Circulars of the Bank. The ignorance of the procedure and the Circular of the Bank dated 20th April, 2005 cannot be accepted. The Consumer was aware of the processing charges and had sought a waiver of the processing charges, therefore, the processing charges had been debited by the Bank on 30th December, 2011 in terms of authority given by the Consumer on 19th January, 2011 (Annexure P/3 in the appeal paper-book)19. Thus, we find that orders passed by the NCDRC and SCDRC are liable to be set aside. We may say that though, the Bank agreed to refund Rs.9.16 lakhs from the processing charges through email dated 29th June 2012 but the Consumer had not accepted such proposal in its e-mail dated 24th July, 2012. Therefore, we find that the Consumer is entitled to refund of Rs.9.16 lakhs only in terms of the decision of the Bank communicated to the Consumer rather than waiver of TEV charges in its entirety. The request was to give concession of 50% of all charges, therefore, it is the cumulative amount of charges which is to be taken into consideration and not the charges under a particular head.