MUMBAI, Sept. 7 -- The State Bank of India (SBI) must bear daily compensation liability for losing a borrower's original property papers, the Bombay High Court ruled. The court directed the state-owned lender to pay a Mahim-based firm Rs.5,000 per day starting December 1, 2023, until it hands over certified copies of the title documents lost while in its custody. The court also ordered SBI to reconstruct the documents, saying the bank cannot shift responsibility to a borrower for not immediately asking for their return. The order came on a petition filed by M/s In Vogue Creations, a Mahim-based partnership firm that had taken a loan from SBI's Dadar commercial branch in 1979. As security for the loan, the firm had submitted the original title deeds of two industrial tenements in Prabhadevi and the lease deed of a plot in Taloja MIDC. The loan was fully repaid in August 2003, but the firm approached the bank in 2023, 20 years later, for the original documents. Consequently, the bank issued a no-dues certificate in July 2023, but the original documents were not returned. The firm then approached the Banking Ombudsman, who on November 21, 2024, directed SBI to pay Rs.1 lakh as compensation. The firm subsequently moved the high court, seeking legally acceptable certified copies of the documents and compensation under an RBI circular issued on September 13, 2023. It told the court that the absence of the original documents was affecting its ability to deal with the properties. SBI argued that the firm had sought the documents more than 15 years after repaying the loan. By then, the branch had shifted and the bank could not trace the papers despite making efforts, its counsel said. The bank also said it tried to help the firm reconstruct the documents and even registered an FIR. It argued that no compensation beyond the Rs.1 lakh already paid under the Ombudsman's order was required. A division bench of acting chief justice Ravindra Ghuge and justice Gautam Ankhad rejected the bank's argument, holding that the firm's delay in seeking the documents did not absolve SBI of its responsibility to preserve them. "The burden of maintaining a proper system for preservation, identification, retrieval and return of documents is solely on the Respondent (bank)," the bench said. It directed SBI to procure certified copies of the title deeds and hand them over to the firm. The bench also relied on the RBI circular, which requires banks to release title documents within 30 days of full repayment of a loan and provides for compensation of Rs.5,000 per day if the delay is attributable to the bank. Given the "admitted loss of the documents and the continuing prejudice caused to the Petitioner", the court directed SBI to pay compensation at the prescribed rate. The compensation will be calculated from December 1, 2023, when the circular came into force, until the certified copies are handed over....