City dry cleaner to shell out Rs 25,446 for spoiling sarees

Aneesha Sareen

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 10

The UT Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has penalised a Sector 27-based dry cleaner with Rs 25,446 for spoiling the complainant’s two sarees.

The forum has directed the Snow White Dry Cleaners and Dryers to refund Rs 15,126 towards the cost of the spoilt sarees, Rs 5,000 as compensation for mental agony and harassment suffered by the complainant, Rs 5,000 as costs of litigation and Rs 320 as dry cleaning charges.

The complainant, Rajesh Gupta, a resident of Sector 19, had given two sarees for dry cleaning on April 11, 2014, and was told to collect them on April 16.

When the complainant approached the dry cleaner to get the dry cleaned sarees on the delivery date, he was shocked to see the apparels had faded, stones of the sarees were spoilt and some white stones had got coloured. When the complainant showed the spoilt sarees to the dry cleaners, he was told that they would get the sarees restored to the original condition. Thereafter, they kept delaying the delivery on one pretext or the other. Eventually, after much persuasion, the sarees were returned on November 22, 2014, but their condition was the same as it was when first delivered in April.

It was stated that the garments were not in wearable condition anymore. The complainant has suffered a loss of Rs 15,126, the cost of the sarees.

The dry cleaners failed to appear before the forum and the proceedings were adjudged ex parte.

The forum stated that it was established beyond all reasonable doubt that the complaint was genuine. The harassment suffered by the complainant, firstly, by making repeated visits to the dry cleaners to get the delivery of the sarees in question and then to receive the spoilt sarees was writ large.