Footwear major Bata has been slapped with fines amounting to a total of Rs 9,000, as a Chandigarh consumer forum penalised it for charging a customer Rs 3 for a paper bag.
Dinesh Raturi, a Chandigarh resident, filed a complaint with a consumer forum, following an incident that occurred when he bought a pair of shoes from the Bata store in Sector 22D on 5 February.
The store charged him Rs 402 which included the price of the paper bag worth Rs 3. However, Raturi refused to pay the extra charges for the bag and sought compensation for the deficiency in its services.
However, the footwear maker refuted all the claims.
Following the complaint, the Chandigarh-based regulator said that it is the company’s duty to provide a free paper bag to its customer "if the companies were that worried about the environment,” the report said.
The forum ordered Bata India to refund the cost of the bag (Rs 3) and pay for the litigation charges of Rs 1,000.
The regulator further directed Bata to pay the compensation of Rs 3,000 to the customer for the mental agony caused by the deficiency in services and ordered the company to pay Rs 5,000 in the legal aid account of the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission.
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