A consumer forum of Delhi has ordered Big Bazaar for paying 1 lakh fine as the retail chain overcharged a consumer. The supermarket is directed for depositing Rs. 80,000 in the account of consumer legal aid whereas it has to pay Rs. 20,000 as compensation to Sarita Narain for “harassing” & “cheating”. As per east district consumer forum, it’s completely against the law to charge more than MRP (maximum retail price) and here Big Bazaar charged Sarita Rs. 90 extra.
Additionally, the forum asked Central govt’s secretary (finance), Delhi govt’s secretary (finance) and chief commissioner (income tax) for examining account of the supermarket so that it could be make sure whether Big Bazaar deceived other consumers too in the same way. As stated by the forum, “The departments of trade & taxes and income tax should jointly take action to scrutinize Big Bazaar’s accounts to find out the mischief they have committed with customers and recover from them with penalty and tax due thereon the amount which they have overcharged in excess.”
This incident dates back to 2012 when Sarita made a purchase of Rs. 3,512.80 from the retail chain and got to know that they charged Rs. 160 for turmeric powder which had the MRP 90 written on it plus Rs. 40 each for 2 soap having Rs. 30 MRP printed. In this connection, Big Bazaar alleged that it “never had the intention to dupe” the customer and overcharging was “inadvertent oversight”. As stated by Big Bazaar in court, “The overbilling…is an inadvertent oversight committed by a staff of the respondent and not a deliberate act of the respondent to sell the goods on price above MRP to the complainant.”
Big Bazaar’s argument was not able to convince the jury bench which was headed by N A Zaidi and the bench felt that the retail chain carried out unfair trade practices.
According to bench, “By and large, customers do not pay so much attention at the time of making the payment and by scrutinizing the bill at home..it is the duty of the seller or the service provider to be honest and charge the customers the MRP (maximum retail price) including or excluding tax, as the case may be. Big Bazaar is a big retail chain and by indulging in this kind of unfair trade practices and methods, they are cheating the public and making huge profits…”
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