Yes you can and should file a case against these people.
Abank statement cannot be obtained without connivance of a bank official. File a consumer complaint against the bank for disclosing confidential information.
Can I file defamation? Can I sue the bank?
My brother who is serving as a Major in the Indian Army is going through a divorce case. His in-laws have written four letters to the Chief Of Army staff alleging he is anti-national. The story they are building is that my brother has international links and has collaborated with his brother (me) and his wife to sell confidential Army information internationally. We have already filed a defamation case against them. Army has given a clean chit to my brother on this post inquiry. They recently wrote a fifth letter attaching my bank statement which has received USD 4000 in Oct 2015. I received this amount from my father in law for the expenses in our marriage in Dec. My wife is an American citizen and we got married in India. Question1: Can I file a defamation case against them? Question 2: They attached my bank statement in the letter to the Army Chief. How did they get my bank statement? Can I sue the bank for giving my bank statement to a third party?
Asked 3 years ago in Criminal Law
Religion: Hindu
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7 Answers
1. First you prove their allegations as false and then file a defamation case against them.
2. You can issue a legal notice to the bank asking explanation about furnishing the bank account statement to a third person without your consent, let the bank give a reply and if the reply is not satisfactory then you can file a consumer forum complaint against the bank for deficiency in service besides making a personal complaint against the bank official who had revealed these details.
You can file defamation case against your brother in laws
2) issue notice to bank as on what basis have they forwarded copy of your bank statement to third party
1. The Bank has not defamed you. Your case is that the Bank has provided your account statement to your in-laws which they are not supposed to do legally and the said statement has been used by your in laws to defame you. In this case it will be impossible for you to irrefutably establish that your Bank has provided the said statement to a third party. The Bank will certainly deny the allegation and take defensive stands including possibilities of your disclosing the account no. and password to the third party or passing on the said statement to them by yourself to harass your brother. Without evidence you can not fix responsibility on the Bank.
2. Ordinarily no Bank will provide the statement of accounts of their account holders to third parties. Might be that those persons got hold of an officer of the said Bank who unofficially and clandestinely downloaded and passed on the copy of your accounts statement to them. You can lodge a police complaint asking the I.T cell of the police to trace out who has entered in to your said account other than you.
1. This is not defamation by bank.
2. Your remedy against bank is to file a suit for damages on account of breach of fiduciary relationship between bank and you. Additionally, you can file a criminal case for criminal breach of trust against bank under Section 406 IPC.
3. Send a complaint to Banking Ombudsman as well.
Sir
I think you have grounds for filing defamation case and besides that you can sue them for hacking into your account details and you can make bank a party to this case. The reality will surface on its own. Only making allegations against bank will not get you anything.
Good luck.
1. First take steps to defreeze your account. The army can not direct freezing of a ban account . Only an investigating agency like NIA/CBI/CID/Crime Branch or Police can do so.File writ petition in high court against this freezing.
2. You can seek damages but no case of defamation lies.
