Dear Comrades,
The Senior Post Master at the General Post Office in Sector 17 has
been directed by the UT Consumer Forum to compensate a HUF account
holder whose account was extended without his permission for a period of
five years, but who was denied interest on the amount deposited in the
account.
The complainant, Ram Niwas Singal, a resident of Sector 15, had a
PPF (Public Provident Fund) account as Karta (custodian) of HUF (Hindu
Undivided Family), which was transferred from Hisar to Chandigarh in
December 1999. It matured in April 2005 and the bank extended the
account of Singal for a further period of 5 years. He was not asked to
fill and sign any form pertaining to that, but the subscription of
Singal was accepted upto March 2010.
According to Singal, he was informed that he was not entitled to
the interest after April 2005, in view of the instructions of Ministry
of Finance, by which the HUF account cannot be extended beyond the
period of maturity and in case of irregular deposits, no interest will
to be paid. As a result, he was not given interest on the amount of Rs
2,50,000 from February 2006 to January 2011.
According to the judgement, the date of opening of the account
was wrongly fed into the computer by the postal authority, leading to
the confusion and it was adjudged that the post office had not given any
valid reasons for non-payment of interest, which is illegal and a
deficiency in service on the part of the post office.
Indian Express
