The Mumbai Suburban District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum this week ordered an architecture and interior designing firm to pay Rs 1 lakh to a shop owner for not executing work on time. Bhasin said after that she engaged S R Choudhary, a consulting architect, to assess the quality and quantum of work executed by the firm as well as the losses it caused her. In her complaint, she sought compensation for the losses and also demanded that the interior designers should pay her the money she had to give the other architect firm to complete the work.

Gurdeep Komalan and Associates argued that the delay was caused among other things, by “Bhasin’s unclear mind and her constant interference’’. They also blamed the weather, including the 26/7 flood for it, and denied that the architect, Sunil Komalan, would stay away and not supervise the work. However, the forum presided by J L Deshpande said there was no evidence that the plan was ever changed at the insistence of Bhasin, which pushed back the deadline.

This also means that whenever you have an interaction with an external firm, make sure that all status and changes are properly reserved and recorded.

The state consumer commission has directed an insurance company to pay medical expenses incurred by a patient within a year of taking a mediclaim policy even though the exclusion clause stated otherwise. The commission noted the insurance company was guilty of not bringing the exclusion clause to the notice of the policy holder while issuing the policy.
After his mediclaim was rejected by the company, the policyholder, Sushil Kumar, approached the Delhi district forum which directed it to pay Rs 1 lakh towards insured amount besides Rs 10,000 as compensation.

The callousness of a nationalised bank in preserving the sale deed of a flat has cost the bank Rs 25,000. In a landmark order, the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) directed Bank of Baroda to pay the amount to a Navi Mumbai resident for misplacing the original sale deed of his apartment. Janardhan B Kotian had given the sale deed of his Vashi apartment to Bank of Baroda while procuring the housing loan. “Being an employee of Bank of Baroda, I had applied for a housing loan from my bank itself to buy a Cidco plot. The bank agreed to give housing loan of Rs 2.35 lakh and I raised a loan of Rs 85,000 from HDFC Bank,” Kotian said.
“In November 2000, I wanted to sell the flat. I approached the bank and paid the entire loan amount with interest. I requested the bank to return the original sale deed but the bank said it was not traceable,” Kotian said. He said that though the bank said that they would give an NoC to CIDCO to go ahead with the sale transaction, he did not accept this as the prospective buyer was not inclined to purchase the flat. “I had to refund the advance of Rs 2.5 lakh I had taken from the prospective purchaser and even forced to take some money from a financier at 2% interest to pay him back the amount,” Kotian said.

In this case, what makes it even worse was that the person worked at the same bank; so consider what happened in those cases where the person was just a regular customer of the bank.

Irked on seeing dead insects in a cake purchased by him, forced a DSP-rank official of Punjab to knock on the door’s of the consumer forum. In his complaint, Singal, a resident of Rupnagar, stated that he purchased a fruit cake worth Rs 40 along with other food items on September 18, 2009.
He alleged that he found a dead insect inside the cake and following this, a day later, he lodged a complaint at Sector 36 police station as well as with director, health services, UT. Singal also deposited the cake for laboratory examination and it was sent to the public analyst, Punjab, from where it was reported that the contents of the sample contained five dead insects and hence, it was adulterated. Alleging deficiency in service, Singal filed a complaint under the Consumer Protection Act.

The above example is a fine way of demonstrating the correct way of filing a complaint, and getting the required scientific evidence to back up your complaint.