Chandigarh, November 5
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Chandigarh, has directed a mobile manufacturing company to refund an amount of Rs 16,800 to a city resident for selling a defective mobile phone.
The commission also directed the company to pay Rs 5,000 as compensation for causing mental agony and harassment and Rs 5,000 as cost of litigation to the complainant.
Kamal Kumar, a resident of Sector 30-B, Chandigarh, in a complaint filed before the commission, said he had purchased a Gionee A1 mobile phone for Rs 16,800 in 2018 from Amazon. After two months of purchase, the cellphone stopped getting charged as well as touch pad was not working. Consequently, he approached the service centre in order to get his mobile phone repaired. The service centre took the mobile phone on August 20, 2018. He was told that the cellphone would be repaired and handed over to him within 10 days.
Till November 21, 2018, neither the mobile phone was repaired nor any proper reason was provided to him regarding the status of repair. Eventually, he requested the centre to replace the handset, but to no avail. A notice was sent to Gionee Company, but nobody appeared. Therefore, it was proceeded ex-parte.
In the reply, Amazon said the product was neither sold nor manufactured by it. Its role was limited to that of a facilitator and not the seller/manufacturer. It was neither liable nor responsible for any action or inaction of the seller/manufacturer nor any breach of conditions representations or warranties by the seller or manufacturer of the product.
After hearing the arguments, the commission said Amazon was the online platform trusting which the complainant paid his hard-earned money to buy the product manufactured by opposite party number 1 (Geonee). The cellphone stopped working within the warranty period. The opposite party number 3 (service centre) failed to provide proper after sale services. Hence, the act of the opposite parties (all respondents) for selling substandard product to the complainant and thereafter not providing proper services during the proceedings of the present case, keeping the handset in their possession till date and non-appearance of the OPs proved deficiency in services and their indulgence in unfair trade practice.
In view of this, the OPs were directed to refund Rs 16,800 to the complainant, along with interest @ 9 per cent per annum from the date of filing of this complaint till realisation. The opposite parties were also directed to pay Rs 5,000 as compensation for causing mental agony and harassment and Rs 5,000 as costs of litigation to the complainant.
