The International Court of ARBITRATION
This is a dispute between an NBFC and a private individual. The case is unique as the mediation was requested by the borrower. The claimant, in this case, the borrower, had taken a personal loan of Rs. 2,50,000/- for a period of 3 years. He had paid the EMIs for the loans for almost the entire tenure, barring 4 months just post the covid phase. He was charged a penal interest for the same, which he claims to have settled. This dispute occurred when there was an outstanding amount of Rs. 20,000/- added to the loan, which he believed was erroneously levied.
The bank had charged a penal interest on the delayed payment that had occurred for 4 non-consecutive months and levied the same, and the demand notice was sent to the borrower post the payment of his last instalment. The borrower claims that the same was paid off during the period of the loan as an extra EMI and was erroneously charged. The NBFC; however, denied his claim, and the same had been charged to him. The borrower then approached PrivateCourt for mediation
The mediator inspected all bank statements and compared the same to the loan outstanding statement issued by the bank. While all the entries in both these statements were concurrent, the one document entry that was missing was a cash receipt from a third-party collection agency. Apparently, the bank had engaged a third party to collect the outstanding EMI from the borrower and was paid in cash. Due to some clerical error, the NBFC had not captured that entry and had charged penal interest on the same. Once the mediator produced this as a piece of evidence, the NBFC dug into the paperwork at their end and stood corrected and issued a no-due certificate.
The agreement was crystalized for the above-mentioned loan at Rs. 18,550/-, by Cash/Demand Draft /Cheque, payable on or before 7th March 2022.
Professionals who look at all the nitty-gritty of transactions can bring out issues that are quite often ignored and not looked at.
