ICICI Bank

Congress leader

Twitter

Aadhaar ID

KYC documents

Bharati Airtel

Airtel Payments Bank

admits to ‘human error’ and fixes it aftertakes toto vent his anger. A Thane businessman had made similar allegations against the same bank in Dec last year.A Delhi-based digital entrepreneur and Congress leader has now claimed that his bank linked histo his account without his consent, the allegation coming just days before the Supreme Court starts final hearing on the pleas challenging the validity of the unique identification.Gaurav Pandhi (34), a former banker, took to twitter on Monday to make the allegations against ICICI Bank. However, the bank admitted that the linking happened because of an error, which was rectified in five days.However, this is not the first time that such an allegation has been made against ICICI Bank. Mumbai Mirror had reported a similar case on December 4 last year wherein a Thane-based businessman, Archit Kulkarni, had claimed that his Aadhaar ID was linked to his account by ICICI Bank without his consent. Kulkarni had submitted his details to the bank for updating his address details.In the recent case, Pandhi’s account is with ICICI Bank’s Paschim Vihar branch in New Delhi. He had submitted his Aadhaar details to the bank for updating his address in October last year.On Monday, he received a message from the bank, saying, “greetings from ICICI bank, your Aadhaar number updation request has been registered vide…..on 11th January. It will be completed within seven working days. Customer service team, ICICI Bank.”A stunned Pandhi decided to post the matter on social media.“I have never submitted any request to update my Aadhaar with my account. How dare you do it without my authorisation? The only time I submitted my Aadhaar to you was during address updation, a few months ago. You are misusing my documents and a clear case of FRAUD!” he tweeted on Monday and even tagged the bank.While ICICI Bank tweeted backed to say that they would look into the matter, Pandhi got a call from its regional head on Tuesday. “I was told it was an error committed by an employee at the local branch, that they wanted to execute the request for another client but apparently, ended up updating mine because of a voucher mismatch.”When this correspondent contacted ICICI Bank, a spokesperson wrote back, “The case you mentioned about a certain customer is an isolated one where a human error took place. We have regretted the mistake to our customer and have resolved his concern. We would like to re-assure that we service a large number of customers every day with the highest regard to due diligence.”Mumbai Mirror also sought to clarify from the bank whether submission of Aadhaar details by a customer is considered as “consent” for linking the same with his or her bank account.The spokesperson wrote, “A customer can submit his/her Aadhaar details as part offor opening a new account. These Aadhaar details are updated in his/her account details with the bank. The consent for it is taken in the account opening declaration in the account opening form. However, for updation of Aadhaar in existing accounts, specific requests are taken from the customers.”Anupam Saraph, a prominent activist who has been contacted by many petitioners challenging the validity of Aadhaar in the Supreme Court, pointed out the risks of linking Aadhaar to bank accounts without one’s consent. “I will give the recent example ofand. More than 23 lakh customers reportedly received Rs 47 crore in their Airtel bank accounts, which they did not know had been opened. It is possible that the Aadhaar number, if leaked without consent, exposes one to money laundering and other risks.”The SC will start the final hearing on the issue today.