mumbai

Updated: May 02, 2017 10:26 IST

The Bombay high court has issued notice to the State Bank of India (SBI) following a plea filed by the husband of a former employee who claimed that the bank denied to reimburse her medical bills.

Pune resident Nagesh Marathe, 62, approached the court after the bank refused to reimburse about Rs6lakh that he spent in buying a lifesaving drug for his wife, who was an SBI employee and was suffering from cancer.

Marathe claimed that as an employee of the bank, his wife Ranjana was entitled certain welfare benefits including full reimbursement of any medical expenses incurred. He said that when Ranjana was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013, the bank paid for her treatment. But in 2015, when the cancer spread to her liver, the doctors asked Marathe to get a life-saving drug which had to be imported from Belgium. But Ranjana died before it could be administered to her.

Later, when Marathe submitted the medical bills of the drug and related treatment charges, the bank did not respond to his reimbursement application.

After filing several RTI applications enquiring about the reasons of delay, the bank said that they were pending scrutiny of the bills and awaited confirmation that the life-saving drug was not available in India. The bank also said that they might need to consider if they can reimburse bills for drugs that were not used by the former employee.

Marathe argued that the government entity was bound by statutes and previous court orders to take care of the medical expenses of their employees.

The high court is likely to take up the matter for further hearing on May 3 this year.