The Barnala commission said the bank failed to show that it had properly investigated the disputed payment or tried to recover the money after the customer reported it.
A Punjab consumer commission has ordered a bank to return Rs 3 lakh to a woman after finding that the money was taken from her account in an unauthorised online transaction, and has also told the lender to pay her Rs 15,000 for mental harassment and Rs 5,000 in litigation costs.
The Barnala District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, led by president Ashish Kumar Grover with members Urmila Kumari and Navdeep Kumar Garg, said the bank was responsible for keeping the account system safe and functional. In an order dated September 28, the commission said the lender had failed to show that it had taken effective steps after the complaint was made, including checking where the money had gone and trying to recover it.
According to the complainant, she received an OTP on October 3, 2025, for a Rs 3 lakh transaction and then a message saying the amount had been debited from her account. She said she had neither approved the transfer nor shared the OTP with anyone. She reported the matter to the cybercrime police the same day and also approached the bank, but the money was not restored. The bank initially credited the sum back on a temporary basis before withdrawing it after an internal inquiry concluded that the payment had been authenticated using two-factor verification.
The bank argued that the customer had enabled domestic online transactions with valid credentials and that the transfer had gone through after an OTP was sent to her registered mobile number. It also said that, as a routine measure, it had called her on the number linked to the account to confirm the payment, but that she did not answer. The commission did not accept that version, saying the bank produced no documents to show it had made genuine efforts to reverse the transaction after the complaint or to trace the destination account.
The ruling adds to a growing number of consumer cases in which banks have been held liable for disputed digital transactions. In a separate Punjab matter reported by The Indian Express, a consumer commission directed State Bank of India to refund Rs 1.64 lakh after finding that the lender had not proved the customer was negligent. In another case reported by the same newspaper, a Delhi consumer court said banks must provide supporting technical evidence when they claim an ATM or digital transaction was successful. Together, those decisions point to a consistent theme in consumer forums: where a customer promptly flags a suspected fraud, the burden is on the bank to show that it responded properly and secured the system.
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