VADODRA: Renewing credit card without the holder’s consent and asking for credited money beyond stipulated time period is a wrongful practice, a consumer court here has ruled.Country’s biggest lender State Bank of India SBI ) and its card and payments services were pulled up for issuing a free credit card to a doctor couple even when they did not want. The bank even renewed it later and levied annual charge.Dr Anil Pandey, a retired chief medical officer, was offered a free credit card in 2001 even though he had refused it. In 2002, Pandey’s wife was also issued a supplementary credit card. He wrote to the bank to cancel the credit card in the same month but this was not done.Pandey told court that the bank had said that the card was free. However, in a statement sent by bank in October 2002 for his wife’s credit card, they had levied bank charges of Rs 262. In the next statement, an annual fee of Rs 525 was added along with an interest of Rs 68.Pandey also alleged that despite writing for cancellation of card, it was not done and instead the card was renewed without their consent. He argued that levying charges on free credit card and renewing it is an illegal act, but he did not take any action until he was sent a notice by the bank in March 2013.According to Pandey’s complaint, the bank, through notice, asked him to pay Rs 23,218 in 2013 for the purchases made using the card between 2001 and 2002 along with interest. The doctor argued in the court that the bank never gave him statement for the purchases and issued a notice after a decade, which is against the guidelines of Reserve Bank of India.Pandey requested the court to nullify the notice and ask the bank to pay him compensation. The court upheld his arguments and asked the bank to pay him a compensation of Rs 15,000 for physical and mental torture.

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