Court slapped fine of Rs.2Lacs on ICICI Bank for false claim

Acting on a judge's complaint, a city court has convicted ICICI Bank Ltd and its Authorised Representative (AR) for "dishonestly making a false claim in court," furnishing "false information" and making "false charge" with the intent to prompt a judge to take actions against a man.
While the court slapped a fine of Rs 2 lakh on ICICI Bank, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Lokesh Kumar Sharma also kept the errant employee standing in the court for the entire day as penalty.

"It is a banking company and cannot be sentenced to imprisonment, but can only be sentenced to pay a fine," said Sharma.

The complaint was moved by Commercial Civil Judge Pulastya Pramachala. In December 2007, the bank, with a sanction from its AR, had filed a civil suit against one Mohammed Irfan for the recovery of Rs 44,000 on account of non-payment of a loan. The bank also moved an application seeking the court's permission to seize Irfan's vehicle.

The judge allowed the AR to take the vehicle's possession from Irfan but restrained them from selling it. The court then asked the bank to file a report on February 7, 2008.

The twist in the tale, however, came when Irfan appeared before the court. He said the vehicle was picked up by the bank officials in December 2007 — days before the case was filed. Irfan also claimed that not only he did not possess the vehicle anymore, the bank had also sold it on February 7, 2008.

Infuriated, Civil Judge Pramachala then sought an affidavit from the bank on the sequence of events. An "unconditional apology" was filed by the AR, but the judge decided to lodge a complaint with a criminal court.

At the stage of the framing of the charges, the bank and its official Rajeev Sharma pleaded "not guilty and claimed trial", following which ACMM Sharma went on to record the testimony of Civil Judge Pramachala, who took the witness box and adduced several incriminating documents.

ACMM Sharma then held the bank and its AR guilty of the charges. As the judge heard the arguments on the quantum of punishment, the bank claimed that "it is the largest private sector banking company of the nation with lots of litigations as well and sometimes due to some communication gap or errors, these bonafide mistakes do occur."

ACMM Sharma, however, trashed the argument and said: "...The larger the size of an organisation, the greater is the sense of responsibility expected from it. The boards of courts of this nation are already over-burdened and such so-called bonafide mistakes add to the burden of the courts."