In a recently
decided case of “Gurgaon Gramin Bank
vs. Smt. Khazani & Anr.” [CIVIL APPEAL NO. 6261 OF 2012 in Special
Leave Petition (C) No. 8875/2010], Hon’ble Supreme Court came down heavily on
the Appellant ‘Gramin Bank’ which litigated up to Supreme Court against the paltry
claim of Rs. 15,000/- by the Respondent.
In this case the
Respondent filed a claim of Rs. 15,000/- in respect of insurance of her Bufallo
[which died] against the Appellant in the District Consumer Redressal Forum,
Gurgaon. District Consumer Redressal Forum passed an order in favour of
Respondent directing Appellant to pay the insurance money with 9% interest and
also Rs. 3000/- as cost. Thereafter the Appellant failed in its appeal before State
Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission and National Disputes Redressal
Commission and thus filed appeal before Supreme Court.
The Supreme
Court held:
“We are of the view that issues raised before us are purely
questions of facts examined by the three forums including the National Disputes
Redressal Commission and we fail to see what is the important
question of law to be decided by
the Supreme Court.
In our view, these types of litigation
should be discouraged and message should also go, otherwise for all trivial and
silly matters people will rush to this court.” [Para
12]
“Gramin Bank like the appellant should stand for the
benefit of the gramins who sometimes avail of
loan for buying
buffaloes, to purchase agricultural implements, manure,
seeds and so on. Repayment, to a large extent,
depends upon the income which they get out of that. Crop failure, due to
drought or natural calamities, disease to cattle or their death may cause
difficulties to gramins to repay the amount.
Rather than coming to their rescue, banks often drive them to litigation
leading them extreme penury. Assuming
that the bank is
right, but once
an authority like District Forum takes a view, the bank should graciously accept
it rather than going in for
further litigation and even
to the level
of Supreme Court. Driving poor gramins to various litigative forums
should be strongly deprecated because they have also to spend large amounts for
conducting litigation. We condemn this type of practice, unless the stake is
very high or the matter affects large number of persons or affects a general
policy of the Bank which has far reaching consequences.” [Para
12]
Supreme Court
further observed that:
Number of litigations in our country is on the rise, for small
and trivial matters, people and sometimes Central and State
Governments and their
instrumentalities Banks, nationalized or private, come to courts
may be due to ego clash or to save the Officers’ skin. Judicial system is over-burdened, naturally
causes delay in adjudication of disputes.
Mediation centers opened in various parts of our country have, to some extent,
eased the burden of the courts but we are still in the tunnel and the light is far
away. On more than one occasion, this
court has reminded the
Central Government, State Governments and other instrumentalities as
well as to the various banking
institutions to take
earnest efforts to
resolve the disputes at their
end. At times, some give and take
attitude should be adopted or both will sink.
Unless, serious questions of law of general importance arise for
consideration or a question which affects large number of persons or the stakes
are very high, courts jurisdiction cannot be invoked for resolution of small and
trivial matters. We are really disturbed by the manner in which those types of
matters are being brought to courts even at the level of Supreme Court of India
and this case falls in that category”. [Para 2]
See full
judgement here: