Selling bad suits costs Sector 11 shop

CHANDIGARH: District Consumer Disputes Redressel Forum has directed Sector-11 shop Hast Kala Prints to pay Rs 8,000 as compensation to a complainant for giving her defective suit material.
The shop will also have to refund the material's cost of Rs 8,065 and Rs 1,200 for the stitching charges to the buyer from Sector 38 West, Chandigarh. In her complaint, Parveen Jaidka stated that she had purchased three suit pieces worth Rs 3,485, Rs 1,985, and Rs 4,580, respectively, from the store and the piece costing the maximum had turned out to be defective. When the owners were apprised of this fact, instead of refunding the amount, they gave her an endorsement/credit note on the receipt for future purchase of any good.

The complainant also argued that, in the meanwhile, she had got the remaining two suit pieces stitched from a boutique for Rs 1,200 per piece and, later, found that the suit costing Rs 3,485 bled colour on washing. Its green dye had smeared the rest of the wash load, making an entire lot of suites useless. She took the defective suit to the shop and the owner kept it on the pretext of showing to the supplier for refund and damages.

The retailers promised to refund her the price of the suit and the stitching charges, along with compensation and interest, but when the complainant visited them for the same, they did not pay heed. The complainant sent them a legal notice but to no avail. The retailers stated in their reply that the cloth was to the woman's satisfaction when she had purchased it, and she had not objected then. They claimed the salesman had showed her the suits properly before purchase, and she had brought one suit to them for exchange and not all three.

The shop claimed that the second suit worth Rs 3,485 had started bleeding after being given to the tailor for stitching, and it was okay at the time of purchase. The shop claimed that washing and stitching at home might have damaged the cloth. After hearing out both sides, the forum held that in the absence of any report by the retailer to prove that the bleeding of colour was due to defective washing, the argument could not be believed.