Financers Ordered To Stop Using Mafia Tactics To Harass Consumers - State Consumer Commission Acts
By Sanjay Sharma, Section Gurgaon Police
Posted on Tue Mar 22, 2005 at 12:14:39 AM EST
Car owners facing harassment at the hands of finance companies or their goons over dues can breathe easy. The State Consumer Commission has passed an order barring financiers from forcibly taking possession of cars without legal sanction. The order comes fast on the heels of a Dwarka family committing suicide to escape continued harassment by recovery agents of car financiers.
- In a related case, the commission imposed a penalty of Rs 50,000 on Citicorp Maruti Finance Limited (CMFL) for harassing one Vijayalaxmi by snatching her three-year-old Maruti 800 car in 2003, and selling it at a throwaway price and then raising a further demand of Rs 51,920.
"No finance company or bank having financed a vehicle has the right to take possession of the vehicle forcibly. If at all they seek repossession, they would do so by process of the court... and not by using musclemen as recovery squad," commission president Justice J D Kapoor said. Kapoor said that if a financier uses unfair means to snatch the car from the owner without any sanction from a court, "the SHO of the police station concerned shall take back the car for delivery to the consumer and register an appropriate offence".
The financier cannot terminate the car loan contract (hire-purchase agreement) and take possession of the vehicle on his own without a civil court’s order, the commission said.
