India's central bank has been ordered to pay a former employee 10,000 rupees ($213.50) in compensation after mistakenly declaring him dead and making him the butt of jokes, a newspaper reported Tuesday.
In 2000, Dharam Pal -a sweeper at the Reserve Bank of India offices in New Delhi- left to visit his uncle in Moradabad, 60 miles east of the capital, without informing the bank or his family, the Hindustan Times said.
His employers said Pal clearly didn't think much of his job, but admitted a clerical error.
"It was almost two years since he was absconding so his employment was terminated and we sent a letter to his wife asking her to collect the money owed to him," said an official from the bank. "But due to a clerical mistake, the letter was written saying the 'late' Dharma Pal."
Assuming that the bank had made all the necessary checks and having not heard from him, Pal's family believed he was dead.
Pal turned up 13 days after his family received the letter, shocking his relatives who took him for a ghost. He has been the subject of jokes ever since, prompting him to seek action against the bank for his embarrassment.
"Considering the circumstances under which the plaintiff found himself and having no reason to disbelieve when he states he had become the butt of jokes in his social circle, I award a damage of 10,000 rupees," Delhi High Court's Justice Pradeep Nandrajog was quoted as saying.
The amount is about three months' wages for a sweeper in New Delhi.
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