Allahabad HC seeks Remedy for Families to Access Bank Account of Person in Coma

What happens to the money lying in the savings bank account of person who is in a comatose state? In such cases, families often face financial crunch due to piling medical bills, and the inability to access the funds lying in the bank account of person in coma is a far fetched fruit. Allahabad High Court's Division Bench of Justice Ajit Kumar and Justice Garima Prashad in Parveen Jahan vs State of Uttar Pradesh discussed the legal void and the need to address such gaps.

The Allahabad High Court while dealing with similar facts sought statutory backing to fill the legal void, allowing families to access such funds to be able to take care of the patient by meeting the expenses of the hospital or manage their households. The Allahabad High Court expressed that “some sort of legislation from the competent legislature or even the guidelines necessary from the Reserve Bank of India regulating the nationalized bank and subsidiary banks to the nationalized banks for providing necessary mechanism as to how the money lying in the savings bank account of such patients can be released in favour of the dependents.”

The Bench highlighted its order in Uma Mittal v. Union of India (2020 CaseBase(ALL) 435) which binds the Central Government to comply with its observations, wherein no steps had been taken so far. The Allahabad High Court sought the Central Government and the Reserve Bank of India to come up with proposals or any guidelines framed in this regard, and the State Government to consider enforcement of guidelines framed by the Division Bench of Kerala High Court in Shobha Gopalakrishnan vs State Of Kerala (2019 CaseBase(KER) 1161).