CHENNAI - Thanks to a goof-up on their part that led to a cheque bouncing, officials of a nationalised bank are now forced to negotiate with a state utility to accept cheques from one of its customers.

P.N. Venkataraman, a customer of the State Bank of Mysore (SBM), recently discovered that a cheque for Rs.1,330 he had deposited with the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) had bounced.

The reason SBM gave: “Customer signature not scanned”.

Venkatraman was told the bank was shifting to a system under which signatures of account holders were scanned and uploaded, and that his signature had not been scanned.

“I have been operating the account with SBM’s Shastri Nagar branch for the past 34 years. It is strange the bank bounced the cheque on a funny pretext,” Venkataraman told IANS.

Fearing disconnection of power supply to his home, Venkataraman went to the TNEB office where he was told that as per the board rules, people whose cheques have been dishonoured are blacklisted and that no cheques accepted from them for the next three months.

Not only that, Venkataraman had to pay return charges and penalty for reconnection of electricity.

Venkataraman called SBM’s zonal office to seek the assistant general manager’s or his deputy’s intervention in the matter.

He said a woman who declined to identify herself by name and merely said she was a chief manager, gave a patient hearing. Then, according to him, she hung up saying, “Sorry”.

Venkataraman said he then called SBM’s head office in Mysore to complain to the managing director, but to no avail.

Following this, Venkataraman sent a mail detailing his plight to Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor Usha Thorat, with a copy marked to the SBM top brass.

Within minutes, he said, he started getting calls from the SBM managing director’s office, the chief manager who had earlier refused to give her name and other officials who promised action.

“The TNEB still declines to accept the letter from SBM accepting its fault for wrongly dishonouring my cheque,” Venkataraman said. “SBM’s assistant general manager has assured me that the bank would sort out the issue by making the payment to the TNEB including the penalty.”

When contacted, the bank’s assistant general manager V.R. Kolandaivelu told IANS: “Efforts are being made so that the TNEB continues to accept cheques from him (Venkataraman). The issue will be settled.”

Agreeing that it was a slip on the bank’s part not to have scanned the customer’s signature, he said a decision has been taken to consult the branch office concerned before dishonouring any cheque.