Railways fined after it takes eight months to send bike from Ranchi to Dehradun

The Dehradun District Consumer Redressal Forum has imposed a penalty of Rs 18,000 on Indian Railways for deficiency in providing services, after a bike sent from Ranchi took eight months to be delivered to Dehradun, and was found damaged at the end of it. The court also observed that people would lose faith in the Railways if it took such a long time to deliver goods.

According to the litigant Babulal Thapa, he had booked four separate consignments including his bike on 2 October 2015. He received three consignments filled with household goods on 21 October 2015. The bike finally reached Dehradun railway station on 3 July 2016. The litigant was shocked to see the damaged condition of his bike and refused to take delivery of it until it was repaired by the department.

According to the complainant, rather than being apologetic about the inordinate delay in delivering his bike, he was told by railway officials in Dehradun that he must take delivery of his bike or he would have to pay a penalty. Aggrieved, Thapa registered a case in Dehradun consumer court seeking the custody of his motorcycle without any penalty, along with compensation for repairing his vehicle and for the mental harassment he had to undergo.

The district consumer forum chaired by Balbir Prasad with member Alka Negi observed that the Railways had provided deficient services and directed the chief goods supervisor at Dehradun railway station to hand over the bike to the litigant without levying any penalty. Moreover, the court also directed the Railways to pay Rs 10,000 for repairing the bike, Rs 5,000 for causing mental harassment, and an additional sum of Rs 3,000 against litigation expenses.

Hyundai ordered to compensate for denying free service to consumer

The Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, has asked Hyundai Motors to pay compensation at the rate of Rs 500 per day, for 150 days, to an aggrieved consumer who was denied free service and accident insurance after purchasing the Fluidic Verna sedan. The situation occurred because the information about Junaid Ravani’s purchase of the car had not been updated in the company’s system. The company blamed the local dealer, who had sold the car for the situation, and said the complaint had been filed with intention to malign the reputation of the company.

Ravani, after purchasing the vehicle in March 2014, had approached a local dealer for free service, but was refused on the ground that the information regarding sale of the vehicle had not been fed in the company’s system. He was promised that the system would be updated within eight days.

However, the update did not take place and in the meanwhile Ravani’s vehicle met with an accident. He did not get accident insurance and had to shell out Rs 17,500 for repairing. This was because his documents could not be validated due to absence of data regarding the vehicle in the company’s system.

Ravani then sent a legal notice to the company and approached the Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum in Bhavnagar in August 2014. He demanded Rs 1,000 per day for the six-month period for harassment faced due to the company’s deficiency in service.

The consumer court has ordered the automobile giant to pay Ravani the compensation with nine per cent interest for the applicable six months. Hyundai will also have to pay Rs 1,000 towards Ravani’s litigation costs, and reimburse all expenses he had incurred to repair his vehicle which had met with an accident.