The woman had approached the Jyotish Sansthan over delay in his son’s marriage. (Representational Image)An astrology institute, the G D Vashisht Jyotish Sansthan of Gurgaon, has been directed to refund Rs 4200 with nine per cent interest per annum to a Panchkula woman who was given “incorrect and misleading information”.
Disposing the complaint filed by the woman’s husband, M K Agarwal of Panchkula, the Panchkula Consumer Forum in its judgment released on August 5, also directed that Rs 20000 be paid to the complainant on account of mental agony and harassment, along with Rs 5000 as cost of litigation. The interest will be calculated from April 3, 2018 till the realisation of the refund.
The woman had approached the Jyotish Sansthan over delay in his son’s marriage. In his complaint, Agarwal stated that he had seen a TV show ‘Guru Mantra’ of Pandit G D Vashisht, who is referred to as Guruji. In the show, questions by persons sent through phone calls or by e-mails are answered by Guruji free of cost. Agarwal said that his wife, Mridula Agrawal, called the phone number in March 2018 to ask regarding the delay in the marriage of their son, Aditya Mohan Agrawal,.
The call was redirected to the call centre of Jyotish Sansthan and where the representative roped in Mridula Agarwal for the institute’s ‘Yes I Can Change’ scheme. At one point the call was answered by one Acharya Sarita, who took all the details, including name, date of birth and place of birth to study the problem and then said that a detailed forecast for two years period will be sent with suggestions and remedies, for which Rs 4200 will be charged.
The complainant said that his wife did not agree to receive the two-year varshpal and pay for it, but was sent astrological predictions and then asked to pay Rs 4200 without any bill.
When the Agarwals read the contents of the document it was found that the so-called forecast was made using incorrect time of birth. While the correct time of birth was 15.10 pm, the calculations were made recording the birth time as 15.10 am. When this was pointed out to the institution, they again sent a revised copy but even the revised copy of the forecast, according to the complaint, made little sense to the family and allegedly did not carry remedies to their problem. After asking the Jyotish Sansthan to look into the matter, finally a complaint at the Consumer Forum was filed on February 15, 2019.
Following the complaint, notices were issued to the G D Vashisht Jyotish Sansthan of Gurugram, through registered post which was not received back either served or unserved despite the expiry of 30 day period from the issuance of notices. Therefore, due to non-appearance of officials of GD Vashisht Jyotish Sansthan, they were proceeded ex-parte by the Forum on April 3, 2019.
The Forum after perusing the document ‘Yes I Can Change’, as sent by the institution, held that it is silent with regard to the particular and specific question pertaining to the inordinate delay in the marriage of her son. Rather it has been mentioned that the son of the complainant would enjoy a happy married life, adding that the document is repetitive, disjointed and generic.
The Forum also held that even the telephonic conversation of the complainant with the various Aacharyas, namely, C L Prasad, Lalit, Viks, Jyoti, Chote Lal, working on behalf of the institution did not bring any fruitful results.
