Bank refusing to hand over the Property documents
Hello,
I am seeking advice on the legal matter which has been going on since 1999. My Father had taken a housing loan from this Bank he was working with. At the time of quitting the bank, the residual balance on the loan was deducted from the PF, gratuity and other final receivables and there was nothing due to the bank. After couple of years, during audit in that bank, it was accused that my father had transferred a certain amount that was taken out from the dormant A/c for his own benefit. To be absolutely transparent, my father accepted this and justified that he had done this only to arrange funds for treatment of an ailing brother. Having accepted this, he also agreed to repay every bit to the bank. The amount so identified by the audit summed up to 9 lakhs odd which was repaid by my father with great difficulty in a short time respecting the demands and deadlines provided by the bank. The Bank representatives (particularly 3 of them) pressurized my father in all ways to recover money despite his promises to repay the amount and gave him no time to think for the ways to gather money. My father requested them to provide time or hand over the papers so that he could pay the outstanding amount by taking a loan against the house but they refused to provide the papers. In fact, they walked up to our home at midnight and demanded that he sign a sale deed in the Bank's name as a security against his outstanding payment. Upon verbal assurance that they will not execute registration of property, my father signed the sale deed and the power of attorney in favor of the bank. We learnt much later that the bank representatives, with the aid of some other ex-colleague of my father met our society's secretary and registered the flat in their name without my father's presence or any intimation whatsoever breaching the assurance provided.
Oblivious to the fact that the flat was already registered, my father somehow managed to gather all the funds (by virtue of loans, credit card advances and borrowing commitments from relatives) to pay back to the bank within 2 months and repaid the entire amount. In return to the payment, when my father requested for handing over the property papers, the bank refused to return the papers by claiming that there was still some on-going investigations against you and we will not return the papers until that investigation is complete. Even after regular follow-ups, by virtue of some excuse or the other, they did not return the papers. Following this, my father filed a suit in the District sessions court of Thane which granted a verdict in our favor. This was challenged by the Bank in the High court of Mumbai. After several years, in 2012, the high court decided to transfer the case back to lower court (back to Thane District sessions court) as the amount of the matter was less than 10 lakhs. I have been frequently following up the matter now in Thane. The very recent date granted was 19th August.
Very recently, my father passed away and I am having difficulty in finding the case related documents and gathering all the information. I was able to gather all the above matter from the photocopies of the lower court's trial papers. I am trying to find all the rest of the original documents.
Briefly, I need assistance in the below matters-
Can I get the photocopies of the case papers from the Court upon my genuine request owing to the expiry of my father?
If I am able to get the papers, how should I go about getting the property papers back from the Bank as my father's successor considering the time lag of so many years? Any caveats that I should be aware of?
Looking forward to hear from you.
Thanks