Husband can't use wife's debit card, says court on SBI-customer three-and-a-half-year-old squabble

The Bangalore IVth Additional District Consumer Disputes Forum agreed with the State Bank of India’s rule that a husband or wife cannot use the spouse’s debit card for any transactions. This was the verdict of a three-and-half-year-old long case filed by a Bengaluru woman, who had asked her husband to withdraw money from her account using her debit card.

As per a report by The Times of India, in November 2013, Vandana, a resident of Marathahalli in Bengaluru, handed over her SBI debit card and PIN to her husband, Rajesh Kumar, to withdraw Rs. 25,000 from the ATM. The ATM delivered a debit confirmation slip but cash was not dispensed. After following up with SBI, the bank denied all money claims stating that the rule ‘ATM card is non-transferable and should not be used by anybody other than the account holder’ and since the husband had used the debit card on the account holder’s behalf it could not accept any claim request.

Vandana somehow managed to get the CCTV footage showing that her husband had not received the cash and approached the bank again. However, the bank dismissed the case since the cardholder was not seen in the footage. Using the Right to Information (RTI) Act, Vandana obtained the cash verification report of the day the transaction had taken place, which clearly showed an excess of Rs. 25,000. However, SBI produced a counter report showing no excess cash was found. Even the Banking Ombudsman’s office passed a ruling saying ‘PIN shared, case closed.’

Vandana had approached the Bangalore IVth Additional District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum on October 21, 2014, claiming a refund of the money lost in the transaction. She further stated that she had just delivered a baby, hence could not leave home and had requested her husband to withdraw on her behalf. After 3.5 years, in May 2018, the court ruled in SBI’s favour stating, ‘should have given a self-cheque or an authorisation letter to her husband for withdrawal of Rs 25,000, instead of sharing the PIN and making him withdraw the money.’