DC | Pramila Krishnan | 3 hours 15 min ago
Chennai: Arjuna awardee and international squash champion Dipika Pallikal is currently fighting her toughest battle, off court. A consumer court in Chennai is now hearing her petition seeking a million rupees as compensation from Axis Bank after its debit card failed her for settling hotel bills in Amsterdam after a tournament in November 2011.
Embarrassed and feeling humiliated, she says there were other international players waiting at the hotel counter to settle bills and one of them jeered that India’s No.1 player had no money in the bank. However, Dipika did not miss her flight as she used another bank card for the hotel to clear her check-out.
While Axis Bank in its ‘version’ before the Chennai district consumer disputes redressal forum (south), where Dipika has filed her complaint (CC No.35 of 2012), stoutly rejected her allegation of deficiency of service and negligence, what piqued the squash star the most was that the bank told the court that the “very fact she is not able to take the slightest disturbance would prove that she lacks the requisite mental toughness of world champions”. Worse still, the bank claimed she was “only making excuses for her non-performance”.
Dipika told DC: “If the Amsterdam incident embarrassed me, this statement from the bank was devastating, humiliating, hurtful”.
Her mother Susan recalled the panic phone calls from the girl, still in her teens, then, “She was traumatized. It was not easy handling such a situation in a foreign country. The scare of missing a flight was terrible. She was almost in tears. Luckily, she had another bank card and it worked”.
Dipika sought to demonstrate how the card episode hurt her on the squash court, pointing out to the court that she had “made history” before the incident by reaching the quarter-final of the World Open at Rotterdam but after the Amsterdam embarrassment, crashed out in the very first round of the next tournament, the $74,000 Cathay Pacific World Gold Series event.
Made me appear like a pauper: Dipika
It might just be ‘routine’ legal jargon but Axis Bank in its response to squash star Dipika Pallikal’s consumer petition told the court she should be “put to strict proof of the averment that she was the toast of the media and her fans were waiting for her return to India”.
The Arjuna Award winner and world number 15 had said in her court petition that it was ironical that when she was the toast of the media and her fans were waiting for her return to India, the failure of the bank’s debit card at the Amsterdam hotel “made her appear like a pauper in front of her competitors from all around the world”, which caused humiliation not just to her but also hurt national pride.
Says Dipika’s lawyer Sanjay Pinto, a noted TV journalist himself, “Apart from downplaying her mental agony and trauma, the bank even questioned the fact that she has been the toast of the media. Don’t responsible officials read newspapers or watch TV? As a former national TV editor, I myself have covered Dipika’s feats many times.
” He said he was shocked by the refusal to acknowledge that when her debit card transaction was declined on foreign soil in front of sportspersons of other countries—she had 10 times the swiped amount in her bank balance—she would have faced humiliation and loss of reputation.
“We got in touch with the bank after Dipika’s debit card failed. She traveled frequently abroad and I wanted to ensure her cards worked. If you read the mails we exchanged, you would be shocked at the callousness the bank exhibited”, Dipika’s mother Susan told DC. And yes, the bank’s mails did make interesting reading as they sought the same information, regarding the card incident, time and again.
When DC contacted Axis Bank’s assistant vice-president C V Swaminathan for his comments, he said he had since been transferred and his exchange of mails with Dipika’s mother on the issue were because of their friendship.
“I will get someone from the bank to speak to you”, he said. But that promise did not materialise.
Chennai: Arjuna awardee and international squash champion Dipika Pallikal is currently fighting her toughest battle, off court. A consumer court in Chennai is now hearing her petition seeking a million rupees as compensation from Axis Bank after its debit card failed her for settling hotel bills in Amsterdam after a tournament in November 2011.
Embarrassed and feeling humiliated, she says there were other international players waiting at the hotel counter to settle bills and one of them jeered that India’s No.1 player had no money in the bank. However, Dipika did not miss her flight as she used another bank card for the hotel to clear her check-out.
While Axis Bank in its ‘version’ before the Chennai district consumer disputes redressal forum (south), where Dipika has filed her complaint (CC No.35 of 2012), stoutly rejected her allegation of deficiency of service and negligence, what piqued the squash star the most was that the bank told the court that the “very fact she is not able to take the slightest disturbance would prove that she lacks the requisite mental toughness of world champions”. Worse still, the bank claimed she was “only making excuses for her non-performance”.
Dipika told DC: “If the Amsterdam incident embarrassed me, this statement from the bank was devastating, humiliating, hurtful”.
Her mother Susan recalled the panic phone calls from the girl, still in her teens, then, “She was traumatized. It was not easy handling such a situation in a foreign country. The scare of missing a flight was terrible. She was almost in tears. Luckily, she had another bank card and it worked”.
Dipika sought to demonstrate how the card episode hurt her on the squash court, pointing out to the court that she had “made history” before the incident by reaching the quarter-final of the World Open at Rotterdam but after the Amsterdam embarrassment, crashed out in the very first round of the next tournament, the $74,000 Cathay Pacific World Gold Series event.
Made me appear like a pauper: Dipika
It might just be ‘routine’ legal jargon but Axis Bank in its response to squash star Dipika Pallikal’s consumer petition told the court she should be “put to strict proof of the averment that she was the toast of the media and her fans were waiting for her return to India”.
The Arjuna Award winner and world number 15 had said in her court petition that it was ironical that when she was the toast of the media and her fans were waiting for her return to India, the failure of the bank’s debit card at the Amsterdam hotel “made her appear like a pauper in front of her competitors from all around the world”, which caused humiliation not just to her but also hurt national pride.
Says Dipika’s lawyer Sanjay Pinto, a noted TV journalist himself, “Apart from downplaying her mental agony and trauma, the bank even questioned the fact that she has been the toast of the media. Don’t responsible officials read newspapers or watch TV? As a former national TV editor, I myself have covered Dipika’s feats many times.
” He said he was shocked by the refusal to acknowledge that when her debit card transaction was declined on foreign soil in front of sportspersons of other countries—she had 10 times the swiped amount in her bank balance—she would have faced humiliation and loss of reputation.
“We got in touch with the bank after Dipika’s debit card failed. She traveled frequently abroad and I wanted to ensure her cards worked. If you read the mails we exchanged, you would be shocked at the callousness the bank exhibited”, Dipika’s mother Susan told DC. And yes, the bank’s mails did make interesting reading as they sought the same information, regarding the card incident, time and again.
When DC contacted Axis Bank’s assistant vice-president C V Swaminathan for his comments, he said he had since been transferred and his exchange of mails with Dipika’s mother on the issue were because of their friendship.
“I will get someone from the bank to speak to you”, he said. But that promise did not materialise.
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