The Redressal Forum on District Consumer Disputes prevented ICICI Bank from closing seven savings accounts of a resident family based in Panchkula, Haryana.
On 2nd September 2020, the forum sent a notice to the bank to allow account holders to operate their accounts with all their current benefits and facilities until further orders.
Petitioner Naveen Sood, a Sector 2 resident of Panchkula alleged he and his family members have for many years many joint and individual savings accounts with various ICICI Bank branches in Panchkula. He alleged the bank was threatening to close all their accounts within 30 days of 9th June 2020.
However, the copy of the bank's notice notes that it took a strong exception "to the negative nature of your (Sood Family's) e-mails to the managing director (MD) and the senior management."
It added, “We have suggested that (you) exercise restraint when communicating with us, but this advice seems to have gone unheeded. Resorting to provocative language or rude and disruptive behavior causes distress and impacts morale and efficiency of our staff.”
The bank said, “In view of the unpleasant nature of (their) interactions and in view with the policies of the bank, it ordered to close all family’s relationships with ICICI Bank with immediate effect.”
However, the forum observed that “the closing of the accounts may cause hardships, inconvenience and financial loss to the complainant”.
In four separate complaints submitted by each member of the Sood family, ICICI bank has sought a cumulative sum of approximately 42 lakhs as compensation and harm to monetary damages, mental abuse, defamation, and tarnishing customers' credibility.
In recent new on the coronavirus, a senior member of the Maharashtra government’s Covid-19 Task Force tested positive - news agency PTI reported on Thursday, 2nd July 2020. He has been admitted to the hospital last week. The task force of nine senior doctors was formed on 13th April 2020, in view of the increasing number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the state, especially in Mumbai.
The country’s worst-affected state, Maharashtra, on Wednesday, 1st July 2020, recorded 5,537 fresh Covid-19 cases, taking the total count to 1.8 lakh. With 198 deaths also recorded on the day, the toll crossed 8,000 as the state clocked 100 days of lockdown. With 1,487 new cases and 73 deaths, Mumbai has touched a total of 79,145 positive cases and 4,631 deaths.
Meanwhile, India reported 434 deaths and 19,148 COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours. With this, the total number of infections Thursday crossed the 6 lakh-mark to reach 6,04,641, including 17834 deaths, 2,26,947 active cases, and 3,59,860 recoveries.
The BMC (Mumbai) will order 15,000 vials of Remdesivir on Friday, 3rd July 2020, for its civic-run hospitals to treat moderately to severely ill Covid-19 patients. It will buy the drug from Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company Hetero Healthcare at a cost of Rs 4,144 per vial.
Until weeks ago, Bangladeshi companies, with no approval from Indian regulators, were offering the same vial at Rs 12,000. A BMC official said they received the lowest quotation from Hetero Healthcare from among all the licensed manufacturers they had approached for the drug.
Remdesivir is an antiviral drug first developed by Gilead Sciences for Ebola treatment in 2014. It remains an investigational drug for Covid-19 treatment with initial studies showing contradictory findings.
While few studies have found no clinical change in Covid-19 patients with this drug, a US-based study conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has found patients on the drug recovering faster.
