NCDRC asks Muthoot Finance to reimburse woman with gold value

The apex consumer commission has directed a private finance firm to reimburse a customer with the current value of 52 grams gold pledged in 2003 with it, after the company failed to return the ornaments.
The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) bench directed Muthoot Finance (P) Ltd to pay money to a resident of Ernakulam in Kerala after adjusting the loan amount and interest as the firm was unable to return the gold that had been pledged or produce proof of selling the articles when the complainant approached it to reclaim the items.
"Being a pledgee, the respondent (firm) is duty bound to either return the jewellery pledged by the complainant against payment of the principal amount with interest or to produce the proof of having sold the same, in case the jewellery stands sold on account of non-payment of the loan taken by the complainant," the Commission comprising its presiding member Justice V K Jain and member Justice Anup K Thakur said.

NCDRC also held that if the ornaments were sold due to non-payment of the loan amount availed, there has to be proof of sending notice to the complainant as well as the proof of the actual sale.
"Since no such record is available with the respondent, it must necessarily tell us where the complainant's jewelery is. That having not been done, the respondent must necessarily pay the current value of the gold ornaments which was stated to be Rs 1,14,400 to the complainant, after adjusting the principal amount lent to the complainant, along with the agreed interest," it said.
According to the complainant, she had pledged 52 grams of gold for Rs 21,000 with the Paravoor branch of the firm in 2003. When she approached the concerned branch in April 2004 to take back the ornaments by paying the loan amount with interest, they refused, saying that the ornaments had been transferred to their head office by mistake.

Thereafter, she left the town where she was then living and settled in Ernakulam. In May 2011, she approached the firm again to redeem the ornaments pledged, but in vain.
The Commission dismissed the contention of the financier's counsel that the complaint was "barred by limitation."
It observed that "in a case of this nature, where the goods are held in trust for the depositor, the owner of the gold ornaments has a recurrent/continuing cause of action against the pledgee, till either the gold ornaments are returned to her or the pledgee refuses to return the said ornaments".