Bank Lockers Update: There have been many such cases where the person who hired the locker has died but no one else was nominated to access the locker.
Bank Lockers: If one or more persons have hired a locker in a bank, then such people can nominate one or a maximum of four people to access the bank locker. The Central Government is going to make these rules by passing the bill in the Parliament. On Friday, August 9, 2024, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary introduced the Banking Laws Amendment Act 2024 in the Lok Sabha, in which this provision has been made. According to the proposal of section 45ZE of the Banking Regulation Act of 1949, if one or more persons have hired a locker from a banking company which is located in a safe deposit vault or somewhere else, then one or more persons together can nominate one or more than four persons. So that in case of death of the person who hired the locker or all the persons, the banking company can give access to the bank locker to the nominated person and they should have the right to take away the things present in the locker.
According to the provision of the bill, more than one person can be nominated in turn, but the name of only one nominee will be effective at a time. The name of the first nominee will remain valid only as long as he is alive. The nomination of the second nominee will come into existence only after the death of the first nominee. After that, the nominee whose name is there will be considered as the nominee after the death of all the earlier nominees. That is, it will be applicable in the order in which the nominee’s name is given. In cases where the nomination order is not given, the nomination will be valid in the order in which the names are written.
There is also a provision in this bill that bank account holders can make more than one and a maximum of four people as nominees. According to the provisions of the bill, account holders will not be able to declare the names of more than 4 nominees. The account holder will have to declare the proportion of the deposit amount that he will receive in front of the name of each nominee. The name of the nominee will have to be given for the entire amount deposited in the account. Increasing the number of nominees will help in dealing with the problem of unclaimed deposits in banks and the amount deposited in the account can be given to the right nominee.
