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Sanjay Sanjay (Business)     28 May 2020

Seizure of pledged gold

Respected Experts,
My query is regarding seizure of my pledged gold by HDFC Bank, the said gold was pledged by me in HDFC Bank and the interest has been paid regularly before the due date, Now when I went to release the pledged gold, the Bank is refusing to release it by saying that I have an personal loan ( unrelated to the gold loan) with them of which some EMI's have not been paid, the maturity of thet mentioned personal loan is still 5 months away but they are demanding that I clear it right away.
Please note I have got no notices or written communication from the bank whatsover.
Kindly advice me on how to deal with the situation.
Thank You



Learning

 4 Replies

P. Venu (Advocate)     29 May 2020

You may take up the issue with the higher authorities of the Bank as well as the Banking Ombudsman.

G.L.N. Prasad (Retired employee.)     29 May 2020

Bankers have a right of general lien on all securities and they can keep the jewels as security.   There is no confiscation involved as you have pledged/bailed the jewellery.

If you have already cleared the gold loan, issue a notice under CP Act to Bank stating that jewels are Sreedharan presented by wife's parents and the borrowed amount was used for family necessities and attaching jewelry of wife for a personal loan may spoil your married life.  You can also demand that copy of the general lien form.  (Once there were decisions that Jewels pledged for a specific purpose can not be taken as security for commercial transactions and the District Forum decisions were reversed several decades back).  Without issuing notice, exercising general lien is also not proper on part of the bank. and there is certainly a deficiency of service by Bank.

Depending on the response, search in google with keywords: "Retaining of jewels after repayment of the gold loan as security for some other loan by Banks" and find out the latest position and experiences of others.

My personal opinion is that we build relations with a bank with great difficulty, once we follow credit discipline, there is no need for controversies and a need for such CIBIL score.  I advise for the repayment of personal loan as it has to be paid today or tomorrow (though bank is never justified in demanding early closure)..

Dr J C Vashista (Advocate)     30 May 2020

Bank has no authority to "sieze" any pledged goods/ gold.

Be specific in your query.

 

P. Venu (Advocate)     30 May 2020

My earlier suggestion had been inchoate.

The settled legal position is that the Bank can have lien over the pledged gold if no adequate security had not been offered for the defaulted personal loan.


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