A chartered accountant from Faridabad, Haryana, along with his family, has accused the State Bank of India’s Sector-15 branch of a serious lapse. Chartered Accountant DC Garg had a locker at SBI’s Sector 15 branch for the past 12 years. They say that valuable jewellery kept in their bank locker has gone missing. According to the family, the locker contained around 1 kilogram of gold and nearly 3 kilograms of silver jewellery, which they can no longer find.
What is the case?
The chartered accountant, DC Garg, said he has had an account with this SBI branch since 2014. The locker rent of about ₹2,300 per year was regularly deducted from his account, and the original locker key has always been with him. He last used the locker around eight months ago.
When his wife recently went to the bank to open the locker, she was told that their locker did not exist in the bank’s records. When she gave the locker number, she was told that it was registered in someone else’s name. She showed that she still had the locker key, but the staff refused to give clear answers. Later, she was taken to the locker area, but the locker did not open with her key. She immediately called her husband. When DC Garg spoke to the bank manager, he was told that the locker had been broken open earlier and then given to another customer with a new lock.
DC Garg said that he never gave up or surrendered his bank locker. He explained that when a locker is surrendered, the customer has to fill out forms and submit the locker key, but none of this happened in his case. He alleged that the bank broke open his locker without telling him and re-allotted it to someone else by issuing a duplicate key. According to him, the bank did not follow any legal process—there was no videography, no witnesses present, and no list of items made when the locker was opened. He claimed that the jewellery kept inside the locker is now missing and said the entire action was illegal.
