You are working as an executive in a nationalised bank for several years. One day one of your close colleagues tells you that her father is suffering from heart disease and needs surgery immediately to survive. She also tells you that she has no insurance and the operation will cost about ₹ 10 lakh. You are also aware of the fact that her husband is no more and that she is from a lower middle class family. You are empathetic about her situation. However, apart from expressing your sympathy, you do not have the resources to fund her.
A few weeks later, you ask her about the well-being of her father and she informs you about his successful surgery and that he is recovering. She then confides in you that the bank manager was kind enough to facilitate the release of ₹ 10 lakh from a dormant account of someone to pay for the operation with a promise that it should be confidential and be repaid at the earliest. She has already started paying it back and will continue to do so until it is all returned.
(a) What are the ethical issues involved? (b) Evaluate the behaviour of the bank manager from an ethical point of view. (c) How would you react to the situation?
Approach · directive: “what / evaluate / how”
What it asks · (a) Identify the ethical issues, (b) judge the manager's conduct, where the motive was good but the means wrong, and (c) decide how I would respond as the colleague who now knows.
The question has 3 parts — answer each
- (a) Identify the ethical issues involved
- (b) Evaluate the bank manager's behaviour from an ethical point of view
- (c) State how I would react to the situation
Open with · Gandhi likened means to a seed and ends to a tree; a life saved is a good end, but ₹10 lakh taken from a stranger's account is a tainted seed.
Cover
- Stakeholders: the colleague and her father, the bank manager, the dormant-account holder or heirs, the bank and its depositors, and me.
- (a) Issues: compassion versus integrity, breach of fiduciary duty and possible criminal breach of trust, secrecy that hides wrongdoing, and my duty to speak once I know.
- (a) Also: fairness to other needy staff, the precedent set, risk to the colleague who took the money, and loyalty to colleagues against duty to the institution.
- (b) Manager: the motive was humane, but the means were unauthorised use of a customer's money; ends do not justify means, and the demand for secrecy shows he knew it.
- (b) Lawful routes existed: a staff medical advance or loan, a welfare fund, insurance or government health schemes, or a donation drive among colleagues.
- (c) My response: show empathy to the colleague and help her arrange lawful aid; urge the manager privately to regularise the withdrawal and repay the account through proper channels.
- (c) If he refuses, report to the competent authority (vigilance or senior management); the repayment mitigates but does not cancel the breach, so act proportionately and fairly.
- Systemic fix: a staff emergency medical fund and insurance, transparent hardship loans, and dual authorisation on dormant accounts, so compassion has a lawful channel.
Close with · Compassion and integrity need not collide: a bank that gives kindness a lawful channel keeps both its depositors' trust and its staff's humanity.
Add value (verified)
- Gandhi, Hind Swaraj: the means may be likened to a seed and the end to a tree, with the same inviolable connection between them. M.K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule (Navajivan) — e-book, mkgandhi.org ↗“The means may be likened to a seed, the end to a tree; and there is just the same inviolable connection between the means and the end as there is between the seed and the tree.”
- RBI (2014): deposits unclaimed for ten years move to the Depositor Education and Awareness Fund, but the depositor remains entitled to claim the deposit from the bank. RBI seeks Public Comments on Depositor Education and Awareness Fund Scheme — Reserve Bank of India press release, 21 January 2014 ↗“The depositor would, however, be entitled to claim from the bank his deposit or operate his account after the expiry of ten years, even after the unclaimed deposit funds have been transferred to the Fund.”
- IPC section 409 punishes criminal breach of trust by a public servant or by a banker, merchant or agent entrusted with property. Section 409 in The Indian Penal Code, 1860 — Indian Kanoon ↗“409. Criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent.— Whoever, being in any manner entrusted with property, or with any dominion over property in his capacity of a public servant or in the way of his business as a banker, mer-chant, factor, broker, attorney or agent, commits criminal breach of trust in respect of that property”
- Kant's Humanity Formula: never treat humanity, in oneself or in others, as a means only but always as an end in itself. Kant's Moral Philosophy — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ↗“This formulation states that we should never act in such a way that we treat humanity, whether in ourselves or in others, as a means only but always as an end in itself.”
Question: UPSC's CS (Main) 2023, GS Paper IV — paper ↗. Approach: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify) — UPSC publishes no model answers. ·
Model answer · 371 words (UPSC limit 250) · Minimalist IAS
"The means may be likened to a seed, the end to a tree," wrote Gandhi in Hind Swaraj. A life saved is a good end, but ₹10 lakh taken from a stranger's account is a tainted seed.
Stakeholders
- People involved: the colleague and her father; the bank manager; the dormant-account holder or heirs; the bank and its depositors; and I, who now know.
(a) Ethical issues involved
- Compassion versus integrity: a life was saved, but with money that was not the manager's to give.
- Breach of fiduciary trust: a dormant balance remains the customer's; RBI's rules let a depositor claim it even ten years on, after it moves to the Depositor Education and Awareness Fund.
- Possible crime: a banker who misuses entrusted money commits criminal breach of trust (IPC section 409), whatever the motive.
- Secrecy and complicity: the demand for confidentiality shows the manager knew it was wrong; her silence, and now mine, make us party to it.
- Fairness and precedent: other needy staff got no such favour; a secret exception invites misuse.
(b) The bank manager's behaviour, ethically evaluated
- Motive: humane; judged only by consequences, a life saved and money being repaid looks defensible.
- Means: unauthorised and opaque; it used an absent depositor merely as a means, which Kant's formula of humanity forbids.
- Lawful routes ignored: a staff medical advance or loan, the welfare fund, insurance or a collection among colleagues.
- Verdict: kind intent, unethical act; repayment mitigates the breach but does not erase it.
(c) How I would react
- With the colleague: keep her confidence as a person, not the wrongdoing; explain her risk and help her convert the sum into a formal staff loan.
- With the manager: meet him privately, commend the motive but not the method, and ask him to restore the balance through proper channels at once.
- If he refuses: report in writing to senior management or vigilance, stating the mitigating facts fairly.
- Systemic fix: a staff emergency medical fund, hardship loans, and dual authorisation with alerts on dormant accounts.
Compassion and integrity need not collide: a bank that gives kindness a lawful channel keeps both its depositors' trust and its staff's humanity.
Written by Minimalist IAS from facts checked at source (how we verify) — a little fuller than exam length, so every part of the question is covered; in the hall, keep the structure and trim the detail. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.