A consumer court in Delhi recently ordered a hospitality group to refund Rs 1 lakh to a man who had booked a banquet hall for his daughter’s wedding scheduled to take place in June 2020 but was cancelled since a nationwide lockdown was in place following the pandemic.
On October 15, the Central Delhi District Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission directed Wedding Opera, a unit of S G Hospitality, to return Rs. 1 lakh to Sunil Kumar Khurana, the complainant who lives in Old Rajender Nagar. The consumer commission also directed the organisation to pay an additional Rs 15,000 for litigation charges and mental agony caused to the complainant.
“The OP (Wedding Opera) had unjustly retained the amount paid by the complainant, especially when there was an order from the government for a nationwide lockdown and the complainant was bound to reschedule the wedding date due to unprecedented conditions in the country and there is no fault on the part of the complainant,” the commission noted in its order.
“As such, non-refund by OP without providing any services amounts to unfair trade practice and deficiency in service. No function could be held on the day fixed for the wedding due to COVID restrictions and because of government notifications, which are applicable all over India, therefore, no loss occurred to OP just because of the cancellation of the wedding booking of the complainant, as no expenses were incurred by it,” the commission added.
Despite requests, Khurana stated that Wedding Opera refused to shift the booking date to December 11, 2020. The organisation cited having other bookings that day as a reason to deny Khurana’s request. This, alleged Khurana, left him no choice but to book another banquet hall.