Company must accept design defect if vehicles need frequent repairs

If a vehicle requires repeated repairs, one can infer manufacturing defect–establishes the following case.

Case Study: Naryan Thakkar had purchased a Mercedes Benz diesel car, model E 220(211). It was purchased in 2003 for Rs 34,88,105. He also spent Rs1,54,524 to get the vehicle registered.

The vehicle was purchased on July 28, 2003, was covered under a two years’ warranty .Within 18 months of purchase, there was a problem with the turbo charger and the engine mount. As spare parts were not available, the vehicle stood idle for a considerable period, awaiting repairs.

After considerable correspondence, the service representative of Daimler Chrysler, inspected the vehicle at Auto Hanger. He also extended the warranty for a further period of four months. The vehicle continued to give problems.

Thakkar filed a complaint before the Maharashtra State Commission. He pointed out that in another case, taking cognizance of an article published in Times Global Business, which had reported about problems when Mercedes had launched its E Class series in 2002 and faced a barrage of complaints about cars not starting or breakingdown repeatedly , the manufacturer had withdrawn 1.3 million defective cars. Thakkar pointed out that the same treatment was not given to Indian customers. Since the company had failed to replace his car, he sought a refund of Rs 36,42,629, claimed a reimbursement of the interest paid for a bank loan to purchase the car. In addition, he demanded a refund of Rs 20,40,871incurred on repairs of the vehicle and asked for compensation and costs.

Auto Hanger contested the case stating that the service centre is only provided certain spares to cover replacements required due to normal wear and tear. If other parts are required, these have to be procured from the logistics centre located in Pune or have to be obtained from the Regional Centre in Singapore or the global centre in Germany has to supply the parts. So Auto Hanger claimed that it could not be faulted for its inability to replace the parts.

Diamler Chrysler questioned the maintainability of the complaint,contending that the vehicle was used for commercial purpose. It alsotried to attribute the problem to unprecedented floods in July 2005 andtermed this to be a natural disaster for which it could not be heldresponsible. The company stated that the vehicle should be inspected by an approved laboratory at Thakkar’s cost to ascertain if there was any manufacturing defect.

The state commission observed that no evidence was produced to show that the vehicle was being used for commercial purpose. So the complaint was held to be maintainable. Defects had developed during the warranty period, and the complaint was filed within two years. So the complaint was held to be within limitation.

On merits, the commission noted that the defects had even before the deluge of July 2005. Even after replacement of several parts, problems persisted. On December 8, 2006, the manufacturer had noted that the torque converter required replacement. The commission concluded that this established that there was a manufacturing defect in the vehicle, without the necessity of it being examined by a laboratory .

Accordingly, by its order of April 28, delivered by P B Joshi along with D R Shirsao, the state commission held Diamler Chrysler and Auto Hanger jointly liable torefundRs36,42,629paidforthevehicle,alongwith12%interest from February 22, 2007 onwards. Additionally Rs 2 lakh was awarded as compensation and Rs 25,000 towards litigation costs.

Conclusion: Testing is not required as repeated defects establish manufacturing defect.

(The author is a consumer activist and has won the Govt. of India’s National Youth Award for Consumer Protection. His email is jehangir.gai.columnist@outlook.in)

National Consumer Helpline (NCH)

http://nationalconsumerhelpline.in/

NCH is a project of the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs operates under the Centre for Consumer Studies at Indian Institute Of Public Administration from The Project recognizes the need of consumers for a Telephone Helpline to deal with multitude of problems arising in their day-to-day dealings with business and service providers.

NCH provides a National Toll Free No–1800-11-4000. SMS can also be sent to +918130009809 (charges apply) mentioning the name and city .

A consumer can call to seek information, advice or guidance for his queries and complaints.

National Consumer Helpline supports consumers by:

NCH VISION

” A Nation of awakened, empowered and responsible consumers and socially and legally responsible Corporations.”

NCH MISSION

“To provide telephonic advice, information and guidance to empower Indian consumers and persuade businesses to reorient their policy and management systems to address consumer concerns and grievances adopting world class standards.”

Consumers-cheer-govt-helpline-as-firms-resolve-grievances

http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31804&articlexml=Consumers-cheer-govt-helpline-as-firms-resolve-grievances-30042017015019#

Consumer Complaints Can’t Be Rejected Citing ‘Alternative Remedy’ Under Other Statutes: Chhattisgarh HC

Remedy available to the consumer under the Consumer Protection Act is an additional remedy, the high court observed. The Chhattisgarh High Court has held that the remedy available to the consumer under the Consumer Protection Act is an additional remedy. Other statutory remedy available to the consumer under other statutory laws would not bar the consumer to avail of that ‘additional’ remedy, it said. Justice Sanjay K Agrawal observed that district and state forums were wrong in rejecting the complaint on the ground of availability of alternative remedy under Section 7-B of the Telegraph Act. Rajesh Kumar Agrawal, had complained before the district forum alleging that his service provider adopted unfair trade practice in providing telecom services though he had paid for data service and while using the data services, balance lying in call account was deducted unauthorisedly. The district forum had relied upon the judgment of the Supreme Court in General Manager, Telecom, v. M Krishnan and another to hold that the petitioner has a special remedy of arbitration provided under Section 7-B of the Telegraph Act and that bars the complaint under the Consumer Protection Act. Apparently, the high court does not discuss this apex court decision relied upon by the forum. Rather, the high court has relied on many other apex court judgments which suggest that the complaint would not be barred. Referring to provisions in the Consumer Protection Act and the dictum in Trans Mediterranean Airways v. Universal Exports, the court observed that the remedy available to the consumer under the Act of 1986 is an additional remedy and other remedies available to the consumer under the other statutory law would not bar the consumer to avail of the remedy available under the provision of the Consumer Protection Act as such the district forum committed an illegality in rejecting the complaint filed by the petitioner on the ground of availability of alternative remedy under Section 7-B of the Telegraph Act.

Read the Judgment here –  http://www.livelaw.in/consumer-complaints-cant-rejected-citing-alternative-remedy-statutes-chhattisgarh-hc/

Patanjali fined Rs 11 lakh for misleading ads

• A Haridwar court imposed fine of Rs 11 lakh on Yoga guru Ramdev’s company, Patanjali Ayurved Ltd.
• Fine was imposed on charges of misbranding and misrepresentation of its products.

In its order, the court of Lalit Narain Mishra, Haridwar’s additional district magistrate, found the company, which is currently eyeing at doubling its revenues from the current Rs 5,000 crore to almost Rs 10,000 crore by the next financial year, guilty of “releasing misleading advertisements+ by selling certain products with its labels although they were being manufactured by some other firm.”

Pull – SMS : Consumer Disputes

Pull SMS – Consumer Disputes

Now you can get case status through SMS even if you don’t have internet connection. The PULL SMS service allows you to request for and receive information about Next Hearing Date of the cases filled in NCDRC/State Commission/District Consumer Forum by sending SMS through your mobile.

Instruction for Pull SMS service:

To get the information about the case, send SMS to 7738299899 in the following format
CONFONET StateID/DistrictID/Case Number
Case number should be case sensitive and match exactly as provided by consumer forum.
Note:- For sending SMS, Charges will be applicaple as per your mobile network provider policy.

For example 1- If your case number is RP/1/2014 and filed at NCDRC, then send SMS
CONFONET 0/0/RP/1/2014

For example 2- If your case number is FA/1/2014 and filied at State Commission, Andhra Pradesh the send SMS
CONFONET 16/0/FA/1/2014

For example 3- If your case number is CC/1/2014 and filied at Guntur, Andhra Pradesh the send SMS
CONFONET 16/512/CC/1/2014

http://confonet.nic.in/PullSMS.html