No cheques, no balances
Rajini, a widow in Chennai, was mistakenly given Rs 22 lakhs from the ABN-AMRO bank account of Ravi, her dead husband. A month later, the bank discovered the error that it had made. It asked Rajini to return the money. But the lady had already spent a significant portion of the amount given to her. She was taken to a police station where they collected the cheque for the unspent amount that was lying with her, Rs 9.98 lakhs. The bank then started harassing her for the remaining amount. Rajini begged that she be given some time to arrange for the repayment.
Knowing that she would be arrested, she moved for anticipatory bail in the Chennai high court with help from some of her relatives. The high court ruled that Rajini should be given some time to repay the remaining amount. But the bank was not ready for this. They instantly filed a case in the lower court under the section 156(3) CrPC and got an order from the magistrate directing the central crime branch to initiate investigation into the matter. One fine morning, the police arrested Rajini from her house in a ’swift’ move, and put her in jail by the evening. The poor widow had to spend as many as 21 days in prison.
When the high court’s attention was drawn to the case, Justice Reghupathy, who was the judge in the Court concerned, ordered the immediate release of Rajini. He found something rather fishy about the practices that were being resorted to in the magistrates court and asked for details about all the cases related to credit cards and personal finance defaults that were registered in the lower courts. The list that was prepared had a whopping 24,760 cases. It was pretty obvious that matters that should have been treated under the civil law were treated under criminal sections in connivance with subordinate magistrates and the police. The judge realised that the judiciary and police had become the de facto recovery agents of the bankers.
Justice Reghupathy, in his order dated August 21, 2008, sought the transfer of all these 24,760 cases from the subordinate courts to the high court. He ordered all reports to be placed before the Chief Justice to facilitate departmental action against six magistrates who had allegedly resorted to steps that constituted a flagrant disregard for the law.
He said in his order: “The said judicial officers concerned, with ulterior motives and to oblige the demand of the bankers, illegally imputed criminal flavour to civil disputes, which action is not only inappropriate and as such legally untenable, but elicits their unwanted intention in aiding one party to intimidate the other party.”
Justice Reghupathy also added: “The other adverse affect of this illegal practice is mounting up of unnecessary cases and thereby the valuable time of the court is wasted.” He also observed: “Already the judicial system in our country is over-crowded with crores of civil and criminal matters at all levels.”
Justice Reghupathy noted the manner in which the banks had not bothered to respect the Supreme Court order: “It must also be highlighted here that the Supreme Court has directed that even when a civil suit is filed the banks must furnish in their plaint that interest/compound interest is charged at such rates and capitalized at periodical rests as permitted by directives of the Reserve Bank of India. On a bare perusal of the complaints, I do not find any such averment in the complaints preferred before the magistrates concerned.
