Share profit from property sale: HC to SBT
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Kerala high court on Tuesday admonished State Bank of Travancore for acting like “blade companies.”
The court directed bank to pay a part of the profit it made from selling off a mortgaged property to the Thiruvananthapuram-based family to which the property belonged.
The court directed the bank to refund Rs 6.50 lakh to the family members within two week. Of the Rs 6.5 lakh, the wife of deceased PK thampi will get 2 lakh and their three children Rs.1.5 lakh each.
Legally, there was no need to refund the amount, the court said, but it evoked extra ordinary jurisdiction under the Constitution to pass such an order considering the sad plight of the appellants.
The court stressed the needs for the banks to discharge their social responsibilities. It criticised SBT for taking an adamant stand even after a court directive to consider the case on compassionate grounds. The bank was acting like ‘blade companies,’ it said. n More on P2
Appellants PK Thampi, his wife R Sobhana, and their children Anoop, Sophia and Raj challenged a single bench order dismissing their petition seeking refund of the profit made by the bank after the sale of their property.
PK Thampi, who moved the petition, argued that the family availed a loan of Rs.15,000 from SBT 30 years back and had defaulted. The mortgaged property was a commercial building in the town, and the debt was Rs.20,000.
The family couldn’t prevent sale of the mortgaged property and the bank purchased the property for the decree amount after following court procedures.
Instead of selling the property of the bank, it retained it and continued to collect Rs 1.416 lakh in a few years, and later the property was sold for Rs. 10 lakh. The appellants challenged this and sought a refund, but the bank refused to grant the refund.
The court, in an earlier sitting, had asked the managing director and the board of directors to take a decision in all fairness and on compassionate ground to refund the amount.
But the bank submitted that it was not in a position to refund the amount, and submitted that it had discharged its corporate social responsibility in its own way and it had paid income tax on capital grounds on sale of the property.
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