IELTS firm told to refund fee, pay ₹1.1L to Ferozepur woman

DUE TO DELAY IN REVALUATION OF HER SCORE, SHE FAILED TO SECURE VISA AS THE DATE TO SUBMIT HER CASE FOR PR WITH THE AUSTRALIAN EMBASSY GOT EXHAUSTED

FEROZEPUR: Giving relief to a Ferozepur woman after 14 years, a consumer court has directed the overseas education consultancy International Development Program (IDP)’s centres based in Chandigarh and Ludhiana to refund the fee paid by her for an IELTS test with interest besides ₹1.11 lakh as compensation for causing mental agony and to cover the litigation cost.

Geetu Bhalla, now 40, had applied for permanent residency (PR) with the Australian government in 2007, for which clearing the English proficiency test IELTS with 6 bands was mandatory.

After she appeared for the test conducted by IDP in 2008, she was awarded 5.5 bands on May 11.

Upon revaluation, the score increased to 7 on August 8. However, due to the delay, she failed to secure visa as the date to submit her case for PR with the Australian embassy got exhausted on May 30 that year.

After Bhalla moved the district consumer forum, Ferozepur, it ruled in her favour on April 22, 2009.

However, the IDP appealed against the order in the state consumer forum, Chandigarh, which directed her to again file the case with the forum in Ludhiana, where she had taken the test.

In January 2016, the Ludhiana forum accepted her application, and after another six years, ruled in her favour, even as IDP contested the allegations, calling them “totally wrong” and accusing the complainant of making “material concealments”.

In the order passed on April 26, 2022, a copy of which was made available to Bhalla on June 20, the forum pulled up IDP for delay in declaring the revaluation result that cost the complainant dear.

“We hold that the allegations levelled in the present complaint are sufficient to prove the deficiency in service,” the forum ruled.