CONSUMER FORUM Avneet Kaur Jalandhar, September 21 The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has directed the chairman, president and secretary of Hazara Co-operative M/P Agri Service Society Limited, VPO Hazara, to pay Rs 5.75 lakh as the fixed deposit (FD) amount and Rs 85,000 as compensation and litigation expenses to the complainant, Ajit Kaur Jhatu, a resident of Kangniwal village, for refusing to encash her FD amount. According to the complainant, she had been allotted and operating many accounts, particularly account no.1040 jointly with her husband Ajit Singh, and got a FDR issued by the Hazara co-operative society for a sum of Rs 5,75,000 in 1999. She said she, along with her husband, had shifted to the USA and used to visit India after every three- four years. She said she went to withdraw the amount from her account on November 11, 2006, but the society issued another fixed deposit of the same amount with account No. 5740 and a new passbook for the fixed deposit account after deducting Rs 1,000 illegally. Afterwards, she returned to the USA. “Being aged and due to inconvenience in travelling from the USA to India, the complainant executed a General Attorney in favour of her daughter-in-law Sarabjit Kaur Jhatu to operate, withdraw and transfer all her bank and other accounts of the complainant, particularly the account with the co-operative society,” the statement of the complainant in the judgment reads. She said her husband died on May 21, 2012, and after his death, she became the sole owner and beneficiary of the above said account and fixed deposit. However, when on request of the complainant when her attorney Sarabjit Kaur, along with her cousin brother Bhupinder Singh, approached the co-operative society and requested them to get the said fixed deposit encashed, the society members started delaying the encashment on the one pretext or the other. When Sarabjit Kaur further approached them, the society members said the said amount of Rs 5,75,000. deposited with them as a fixed deposit had been withdrawn illegally by Jasbir Singh, former president, ,and Malkiat Pal, former secretary of the society. And that the above said fixed deposit of complainant would be encashed as and when the amount is recovered from them. Meanwhile, having failed to understand on what grounds the encashment of Ajit Kaur’s fixed deposit amount failed, the attorney, Sarabjit Kaur, on behalf of Ajit Kaur (the complainant) approached the consumer forum to seek justice against the fraud committed by society members. The notice of the complaint was given to the opposite party and in their reply to the forum they said no FDR for a sum of Rs 5,75,000 has been issued by the opposite party in favour of the complainant. The alleged photocopy of the passbook was forged and fabricated. No receipt of payment of Rs 5,75,000 is annexed with the complaint which could show that the complainant deposited Rs 5,75,000 with the opposite party. The forum after verifying documents presented by both parties said: “The passbook of the complainant shows the transactions made by her. On November 18, 2006, she withdrawn the amount from her account and got it deposited in account having number 5740, thus, the complaint of the complainant is partly accepted and opposite parties are jointly and severally liable to pay the said amount to the complainant with 10 per cent interest from the date of deposit — November 11, 2006, till realisation.”

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