December 9, 2022
Md Nadimul Haque raised during Zero Hour the need for formulating an SOP for heirs of the deceased to claim their inheritance from banks
Sir, rightful heirs have a hard time claiming their inherited money usually present in the form of unclaimed bank deposits, insurance, Post Office funds, etc., because the process to retrieve them is often cumbersome and different for each entity and every bank. At present, the unclaimed sum is reportedly estimated at a massive Rs. 82,025 crore. Parliament has authorized the RBI to enact a policy or issue directions with a statutory backing. However, no redressal or actionable procedures have been formulated until now. What accelerates
the problem is the fact that individual banks make their own rules and demands to release these claims. For instance, they ask
for probate, sureties from unrelated person, indemnities, affidavits, mandatory fixed deposit, etc. Therefore, I request the Government to formulate a Standard Operating Procedure for making effective claims and for creating a more humane system for heirs of deceased persons to claim their inheritance. In addition, a centralised online database should be developed under the control of the RBI. That will provide information about the deceased account holders including their details. Further, in every nine to twelve months, banks should be asked to mandatorily inform the RBI about the inoperative or dormant bank accounts. I end by saying that this unclaimed public money, which is to the tune of more than Rs.82,000 crores, is the resource of the citizens. I am just concluding. Okay, Sir. I would like to say that
this amount is the resource of the citizens and it is the duty of the Government that this resource, unclaimed money, goes back in the
fulfilment of the demands and various schemes of the citizens.
