Ram 26 July 2017

Power of attorney to operate bank safety locker

Dear Legal Advisors,

We are an NRI couple currently living overseas have a bank safety locker in our home town. The bank where we have safety locker sent out a letter to our Indian Address that they are moving the bank to new premises and hence we are required to empty the safety locker in 3 weeks. If we are not doing so, then bank is not responsible for the damages caused to our belongings present inside the locker during the transfer of safety locker.

So, we are trying to provide Power of Attorney from abroad to my parents to empty the safety locker in our absence.We have not provided any Power of attorney to anyone when we were in India. We understand that it is possible to provide POA from abroad by getting an attestation from local Indian Embassy. Is that enough to show it to bank to operate or empty the locker? We are interested to provide POA only for operating the bank locker and nothing else. Can the bank deny the access to POA holders even after POA is issued? Indian Overseas Bank is the concerned bank in my case and as far as I have googled, there is no specific form to provide POA unlike SBI, ICICI, etc. So I assume drafting the document with needed quotes in plain paper will do.

Does that document also needs to be adjudicated in India even after it is being attested by Indian Embassy for operating the bank locker? What is the exact process of adjudication? Can someone please elaborate the adjudication process if it is required for this purpose.

Thank you.

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5 Replies

satish kumar (lawyer) 27 July 2017

Mr. Ram,

to open locker , intially you have can provide POA to any known person it may your mother or father or sister or brother, it has to be attested by the overseas attorney therein and should have been sent to home town, once your POA reaches home town it has to be validated by submitting the said POA in the distrcit registrar office by the person on whose name it is provided , aftef collecting approriate charges of Rs.1000/- and then the district registerar validates the POA, then this POA can be used to open your locker.

regards,

satish

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G.L.N. Prasad (Retired employee.) 27 July 2017

Do not be in a hurry. Be calm. As there were complaints in the past that the articles kept in locker were damaged, as a precaution the bank issues such notices.

If there are breakables and any damage can be done to the contents of locker there is a meaning in vacating. Other wise there is no specific purpose. The bank takes more precautions than you, as it is their locker and there are experts to handle suck lockers appointed by the committee.

If it is not mandatory, ignore it. Have you used a separate lock outside unit ? If so believe nothing can happen.

This is only practical suggestion. You may make a call to Bank and take official's guidance. But my only request is not to take so many pains of such poa, asking your old parents to vacate them and preserve them, the misunderstanding in case of accidental loss or theft that may arise in case of uneventuality should also be considered. Final decision is yours.

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Ram 27 July 2017

Authorities are very confident that nothing will happen. But we are little concerned thats the reason started looking for other options. Thank you for the response.