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.
It asks 3 things — 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 · The value conflict, compassion versus integrity: a life saved with ₹10 lakh from a stranger's dormant account, framed by Gandhi's seed-and-tree line from Hind Swaraj; then the stakeholders.
Cover
- Stakeholders: the colleague and her father, the manager, the account holder, the bank and its depositors, and I, who now know.
- (a) Issues: compassion v. fairness, fiduciary trust (RBI's DEAF claim rule), law v. motive (IPC 409; since then, BNS 316(5)), loyalty v. honesty.
- (b) Humane motive, wrong means: a good end from a tainted seed; lawful routes ignored; repayment mitigates but does not erase the breach.
- (c) Merits–demerits table: stay silent, report at once, or urge disclosure and report if refused; I choose the third.
- Steps: help her convert the sum into a staff loan; urge the manager to disclose and restore; report in writing if he refuses.
- Long-term fix: a staff emergency medical fund, hardship loans, and dual authorisation with alerts on dormant accounts.
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.”
- Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, section 316(5): criminal breach of trust by a public servant, or by a banker, merchant or agent entrusted with property; the same wording as IPC section 409.The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (Gazette of India text, Ministry of Home Affairs) ↗“(5) 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, merchant, factor, broker, attorney or agent commits criminal breach of trust in respect of that property, shall be punished with imprisonment for life”
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· 374words · Minimalist IAS
Compassion versus integrity: a life was saved, but with ₹10 lakh from a stranger's dormant account. "The means may be likened to a seed, the end to a tree", wrote Gandhi in Hind Swaraj.
Stakeholders: the colleague and her father (life); the manager (career, liability); the account holder (their money); the bank and its depositors (trust); and I, who now know (duty, loyalty).
(a) Ethical issues involved
- Compassion v. fairness: a life was saved with money not the manager's to give, a favour no other needy staff got.
- Fiduciary trust: a dormant balance remains the customer's; RBI lets a depositor claim it even ten years on, after it moves to the Depositor Education and Awareness Fund.
- Law v. motive: a banker's misuse of entrusted money can amount to criminal breach of trust (IPC section 409; since then, BNS section 316(5)), whatever the motive.
- Loyalty v. honesty: secrecy shows the manager knew it was wrong; her silence, and now mine, make us party to it.
(b) The bank manager's behaviour, ethically evaluated
- Motive: humane; judged by consequences alone, a saved life and steady repayment look defensible.
- Means: unauthorised and opaque; in Gandhi's terms, a good tree grown from a tainted seed.
- Lawful routes ignored: a staff medical advance, 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
| Option | Merits | Demerits |
|---|---|---|
| Stay silent | Protects a friend | Complicity; depositor's money at risk |
| Report at once | Upholds the rules | Ignores motive and repayment |
| Urge disclosure, report if refused | Fair and lawful | Needs tact; brief delay |
- With her: I would keep her confidence as a person, not the wrongdoing, explain her risk and help convert the sum into a staff loan.
- With the manager: privately urge him to disclose the withdrawal to the competent authority and restore the balance through proper channels.
- If he refuses: I would report in writing to senior management or vigilance, stating the mitigating facts fairly.
- Long-term 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.
Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 1 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.
