Cheque in Kannada dishonoured, customer drags bank to court

BELAGAVI: A customer has dragged ICCI bank to court after his cheque was dishonoured on grounds that the information on it was written in Kannada.
Anand Diwakar Garag has filed a case, alleging lack of service, with the district consumer redressal court in Belagavi. In November, Garag presented a cheque for Rs 17,220 to the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), as premium for his insurance policy. The LIC handed the cheque over to Corporation Bank, which handles its accounts.However, when the cheque was presented to ICICI for payment, it was returned with a note “present with document”.
Before he filed the case, Garag sought clarification from both ICICI bank and LIC as to why his cheque had been dishonoured. However, neither furnished a satisfactory explanation. Garag told TOI that he made Hescom payment in cheques, wherein all details were filled in Kannada. “My bank told me that the reason they dishonoured my cheque was because the details were filled in Kannada. Also, in another incident that occurred after this one, ICICI bank dishonoured a cheque I had given to a private firm,” he said. The consumer redressal court has issued notices to LIC, ICICI and Corporation Bank in connection with the case, which will be heard on February 28.
The ICICI bank has denied the charge and has said it is completely baseless and erroneous to say that the cheque was rejected on the grounds of language.
"ICICI Bank would like to clarify that it honours cheques in all regional languages in accordance with the RBI guidelines. We regularly honour cheques written in regional languages in all states including Karnataka. We have in the prior months duly honoured a cheque of the same customer written in Kannada," an ICICI Bank spokesperson said.
"As an industry practice, cheque clearances under the CTS ( Cheque Truncated System ) is done on the basis of an image of the cheque that is sent to the paying bank instead of the physical cheque. However, at times the image is unclear and hence, the paying bank requests the presenting bank to send across the physical cheque for verification. This is what has happened in this case. Since the presenting bank did not send the physical cheque for clearance, ICICI Bank was unable to clear the said cheque," the spokesperson said.