322 cases in 1 yr against Myntra in P’kula court

Amit Bathla

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, November 8

As many as 322 cases have been filed against fashion e-commerce company Myntra till November 6 since August 2018 in the Panchkula District Consumer Redressal Forum. Of these, eight cases were disposed of yesterday.

Experts said such cases had seen an upward trend as online companies continued to charge consumers wrongly by offering bargain price, but illegally adding tax charges thereafter.

Pankaj Chandgothia, an advocate, said, “The tag price or MRP is always inclusive of all taxes. When a company offers a discount of say 40 per cent on an MRP tag of Rs 600, it should charge the customer Rs 360. However, the company adds VAT/GST over and above this price, which is wrong and amounts to double taxation, as the price already includes applicable taxes.”

This is termed as unfair trade practice and is a violation of the Consumer Protection Act, he said.

To escape the court wrath and minimise their loss, these companies have started compromising the matters with the complainants. The compromise amount could be anything between Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000.

The latest case was filed by Prateek, a Class XII student of St Kabir Public School and a law aspirant. He bought four T-shirts from Myntra.com in October 2019, but when he saw the bill, there were extra charges of GST.

“I am preparing for law entrance exam because of which I am well aware of my legal rights. So, I filed the case before the Panchkula consumer court to teach a lesson to the company,” he said.