The Kerala High Court recently directed the State Bank of India (SBI) to refund Rs 3.73 lakh to a retired college principal after a cyber fraudster allegedly siphoned the amount from her savings account.Justice Harisankar V Menon set aside the banking ombudsman’s order rejecting the woman’s complaint, observing that she had reported the fraudulent transactions to the bank on the same day, but the bank failed to take steps to restore the money.“This Court also notices that, as soon as the fraudster siphoned off the amount from the petitioner’s savings bank account, a complaint was also lodged by the petitioner, as is clear from the SMS…Though the complaint was lodged on the very same day, the bank has not taken any steps for ensuring that the amounts debited are recredited to the petitioner’s account,” the order dated October 5 read.According to the petitioner, she had received an SMS on July 13, 2019, informing her that her debit card was proposed to be blocked and could be reactivated online. She subsequently received a call from the same number, with the caller repeating the claim that her card had been blocked and that she needed to provide certain details to reactivate it.The caller asked her to share a one-time password (OTP) for registering the “State Bank Secure App”. Although the message cautioned her against sharing the OTP with anyone, she provided it to the caller. Soon afterwards, Rs 3.73 lakh was debited from her account. Justice Harisankar V Menon set aside the banking ombudsman’s order rejecting the petitioner’s complaint.The petitioner immediately contacted the bank’s customer care service, after which her internet banking account was blocked. She also lodged complaints with the bank and the police. The police investigation found that a person from West Bengal had used the details and siphoned off the money. However, the amount was not refunded, prompting her to approach the banking ombudsman. The ombudsman rejected her complaint.The court noted that the petitioner had lodged a complaint as soon as the fraudster siphoned off the amount from her savings bank account. It, however, found that the bank had taken no steps to ensure that the debited amount was credited back to her account. The bank had also failed to take further action even after the police identified the fraudster.Story continues below this adAlso Read | Rs 11,000 lost after ‘debit card swapped’ at ATM, senior citizen wins Rs 17,000 from SBI“The fact that the petitioner was not privy to the fraud is also clear from the report filed by the police authorities,” it added.The court held that the case fell within the zero-liability provision under a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) circular which provides for zero liability for a bank customer who loses money in an unauthorised electronic transaction because of a third-party breach, where neither the bank nor the customer is at fault. The customer must notify the bank within three working days of receiving communication from the bank about the unauthorised transaction.The high court thus directed SBI to refund the loss of Rs 3.73 lakh within four weeks. “The 2nd respondent Bank is directed to make good the loss of Rs 3,73,000 as stipulated under…Circular, as expeditiously as possible, at any rate, within a period of four weeks,” the order read.