Delhi court finds Citifinancial guilty

Agencies

New Delhi: Delhi State Consumer Redressal Commission headed by Justice J D Kapoor has found Citifinancial Consumer Finance guilty of extracting double the loan amount the company had given to the consumer.

Sandeep Kumar Sharma, a resident of the IGNOU Housing Complex in Maidangarhi, applied for a personal loan of Rs 22,000 and Citifinancial sanctioned it in January 2007. He was assured that he will pay a monthly installment of Rs 1,125 for 24 months.

'The financial company had wanted to recover Rs 40,500 against the loan of Rs 22,000. There cannot be any worse kind of exploitation of a poor man who is in need of money,' it said.

'We do not find any merit in the appeal and dismiss the same. The order shall be complied with within one month from the date of receipt of this order,' Justice Kapoor said.

However, Sharma later realised he had been asked to pay 36 monthly installments. He filed a complaint in a district consumer court which asked the financial company to take monthly installments of Rs 1,125 for only 24 months and compensate the consumer for Rs 8,000.

The company appealed against the order in the state consumer court that found it guilty of adopting unfair trade practice.