RTI for educational loan

**sandeepbaheti** · 10-01-2008, 06:36 PM

Hi all,
I am a student of IIM Indore and have taken educational loan from State Bank of Indore to pursue my studies.
While taking the loan I was told by the bank officials that it is compulsory to apply for life insurance (accidental death cover) along with the loan otherwise the loan would not be sanctioned. Believing them I applied for the loan and around Rs 8000 was charged as insurance premium.
I later realized that banks cannot lawfully compel borrowers to take insurance with loan. Accordingly I wrote a complaint to the bank on 20/9/08 regarding which they have not replied yet but have informally told me that they will refund the amount of insurance premium.
I was approached by my batchmates for getting the same done for them and then I realized that the bank has been following this practice for all batches of students.
Accordingly I am planning to file an RTI application with the bank. I have attached the application with this post. Please go through it and suggest what changes can be made in this, particularly:

For item 1 in the application I have kept it as I want it to be. However I feel they may reject this information u/s 11. Should I change it to ask just the number of borrowers fulfilling the given criteria?

Is there anything extra that can be added to this application to make it more effective?

As you can see, I have drawn a lot from the discussions and posts on this portal.

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**karira** · 10-01-2008, 07:34 PM

Sponsorer

Sandeep,

Be prepared that the information requested in Item 1 is likely to be denied as "third party" and some subsection of Sec 8.
After that, you will have to follow the usual route in the first appeal (did PIO seek consent of third parties, etc etc.)

Where you are mentioning Act/Law/Regulation/etc.... also add the word "circular" or any other communication received from anyone else......

**abhi987** · 10-01-2008, 09:22 PM

Good work keep it up.

I would suggest you also prepare a draft removing all the generalised queries by replacing it with queries pertaining to an individual case of a student, and then ask all the students sailing in the same boat to file RTI queries enmasse, you can thereby avoid the problem you may come across u/s. 8.

You can then file both the RTI application you have already drafted with generalised queries and also RTI applications with specialised queries.

You can then try and approach media with replies recd by a number of students to highlight the approach taken by the bank.

But also please clarify if the bank is trying to safeguard it's principal amount by taking out an insurance of the students who take loans, or are they trying to do some extra business.

Please exercise extra care to see that other future students are not denied loans.

**sandeepbaheti** · 10-01-2008, 10:03 PM

Hi abhi,
It's a good suggestion from your side but the problem is that ours is a huge institute and I have no way of finding out which people took loan from SB Indore among the students of courses other than my course and the ex-students. That is why I am seeking the information in the first place. For merely getting the refund a written complaint to the bank threatening to take up the matter with consumer court was good enough. I have done that for myself and can do that for the handful of students in my course. Unless I get the details of all other students my purpose isn't served.

By the way, do you people think that asking for inspection of any records can be helpful? Only a thought that struck me just now.

**karira** · 10-01-2008, 11:41 PM

Sandeep,

Can you not use the RTI route to the Bank and make them openly announce this under Sec 4(1)(c). That way they have to inform not only the prospective customers in future but also inform the old students for claiming back the amount.