Marriage bureau fails to find a match, to pay up

CHANDIGARH: The complainant, Neha Aggarwal said she availed the services of the agency to look for a matrimonial alliance for her brother-in-law and made payment of Rs 50,000 for a plan valid for 12 months.

Under the “Royal plan,” the bureau was to upload 21 profiles in her account and arrange meetings. However, nothing was done on this front. The complainant even approached the police complaining about deficiency in service.

The complainant said she made repeated requests to the marriage bureau from August to October 2016 but their procrastination led to the expiry of the service agreement. Eventually, the complainant approached the agency to renew the service agreement or get the money refunded with interest, to which they categorically refused. In their reply, the marriage bureau said as per Clause 4 of the service agreement executed between the parties, the membership fee is non-refundable and non-transferable. As per the aforesaid service agreement, they were bound to provide 21 profiles to the complainant, but provided 31 profiles till date and out of these 31 profiles, brother-in-law of the complainant rejected four. Other than that, 12 conferences were organized by them as per the preference of the brotherin-law of the complainant. As for the rest, the complainant’s profile was rejected and he knew about it.

The Forum held that it was clear from the police complaint and the consumer complaint that the company did not provide information regarding a suitable alliance for the brotherin-law of the complainant. Forum stated that the act of marriage bureau in not initiating the refund of the money paid by the complainant is totally irrational, uncalled for and amounts to deficiency in service. The forum said it indicates the fact that the company indulged in unfair trade practice, causing physical and mental harassment to the complainant.
The district consumer disputes redressal forum has fined a marriage bureau, Wedding Wish, for failing to find a suitable match for the complainant’s brother-in-law. This is the third such case in five months and second in five days against the same agency. The forum directed them to refund Rs 4,500 and Pay Rs 7,000 as compensation and Rs 5,000 as litigation cost.