On 15 April 2026, a two-judge bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan held that a bank receiving cheques for collection acts as an agent of the customer and is bound to present the instruments within the validity period; the failure to do so — resulting in the cheques becoming stale, without a reasonable explanation — constitutes deficiency in service under the Consumer Protection Act. The Court moderated the compensation, reducing the consumer-commission award from 10 per cent to 6 per cent of the cheque amount with 6 per cent interest. A digest of the holding and the doctrinal architecture for banking-agent liability.