Misrepresentation of information and negligence of ICICI banking staff
I am a 64 years old Laywer and I had an account in ICICI bank. I wished to invest an amount of Rs. 600000 in a fixed deposit due to its fixed interest rate but the ICICI Prudential mutual funds relationship manager and the banking staff recommended me to invest in mutual funds by just talking about it highly and saying I would benefit a lot. The staff did not bother to explain to me the negative aspects of mutual funds and that I could even lose my principle. I neither was told about NAV and the amount of units they bought with my money and at what price. I told him I want to invest only for a year while he wanted me to invest for 3 years but I did not want to hold up my money for so long. He told me that 1 year was the lock-in period. I invested the money in December 2017 and I withdrew Rs. 500000 in March 2018. The staff just told me that it's risky and not to remove but he did not explain me why. He told me to put the remaining Rs. 100000 in the mutual funds account. I then thought that in December 2018, one year had passed and hence applied for closure. On receiving the statement, I got to know that I received just Rs. 55400 in my account out of Rs. 100000. I then made my daughter aware of what had happened and she opened an account with ICICI Prudential mutual funds website (about which the banking staff never bothered to tell me) and noticed that I had already lost Rs. 36000 when I withdrew Rs. 500000 in March 2018 about which I never got any message nor the banking staff bothered to tell me that I had lost this amount. I always thought mutual funds is risky but my principal amount would be safe. The banking staff never bothered to tell me even later in December that I would lose money if I closed the mutual funds account which resulted in a net loss of Rs. 45000. He did not tell me how many units I bought, how many were sold and at what rate and hence I suffered such a huge loss unknowingly.
I met him this month and he said that he never informed me about my loss earlier in March 2018 as he felt that I would recover my losses and he also said that I would have never understood the details had he tried to explain it to me. He said I did what you asked and even if I had to get back Rs. 1000 out of Rs. 100000, he would still close my account which means I would bear a loss of Rs. 99000.
I am a Criminal Lawyer myself and I feel fooled and cheated by the ICICI bank and its mutual funds. Do I hold any right to file a civil case against the bank? Will it be beneficial for me to recover my losses back?