Ahmedabad: Gujarat high court has issued notice to a cooperative bank in Rajkot and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) after a petitioner complained that his CIBIL score reduced drastically, making him ineligible for loans because the bank kept issuing notices intended for his namesake. The namesake was a guarantor for two loans that were defaulted upon.
According to the case details, Pravinbhai Mohanbhai Rathod (40) has an account with Rajkot Nagrik Sahkari Bank Ltd. Between Feb and Oct 2019, the bank issued several notices asking him to repay the outstanding amount of two loans extended to Alpesh Baraiya and Sonalben Vaghela. The bank’s notices stated that Rathod was a guarantor for these loans, and since the original borrowers allegedly defaulted, Rathod was issued the notices for recovery of the remaining amount.
Rathod wrote to the cooperative bank in July 2019, requesting it to check whether there might be a mistake on its part, as he never signed as a guarantor for those loans. He also filed a complaint with Reserve Bank of India in this regard.
On Aug 29, 2019, the cooperative bank replied to Rathod and admitted its mistake, stating that there was another account holder, Praveenbhai Mohanbhai Rathod, who signed the loan as a guarantor. Since the petitioner’s account was also in the same bank, he received the notices. The bank also assured necessary corrections so that Rathod would not be disturbed in the future.
According to Rathod’s petition, his CIBIL score was shown as 587 in Nov 2019. It was above 750 once, and it came down to 486 in Jan 2025. He requested the bank to take rectifying measures, but when nothing happened, he approached the high court through advocate Prashant Chavda, who contended before the court that Rathod had to suffer because of the bank’s blunder in issuing notices to him instead of his namesake.
It was contended that Rathod applied for a loan of Rs 6 lakh for self-employment under a govt scheme. But his loan was rejected due to his poor CIBIL score, which, according to the petitioner, was due to the cooperative bank’s mistake.
Rathod’s petition seeks HC direction to “the respondent authority to correct the petitioner’s CIBIL score in the Rajkot Nagrik Sahkari Bank Ltd account”. He has also asked for an RBI inquiry into the alleged blunder committed by the local bank.
After a preliminary hearing, Justice Aniruddha Mayee issued a notice and posted further hearing on April 11.