Kurukshetra man has a bad hair day, clinic told to save its skin by paying him Rs. 69,000

Rajesh Kumar Kaushik of Kurukshetra alleged that after being allured by the assurances of the Studio-6 Life Style Clinic Private Limited, he agreed to opt for hair transplantation treatment, costing Rs 52,000, including SGST/CGST. He paid the said amount on December 20, 2017. Thereafter, the clinic and its staff took the complainant into the operation theatre (OT).

Kaushik alleged that the OT environment was not pleasant/peaceful because the entire staff seemed to be in a hurry and when he asked where the doctor was, the complainant was told that the doctor was out of station and all the people present there were trained in hair transplantation work and they were doing the treatment of all the patients. So the treatment of the complainant was done by the attendants and not by the doctor.

Kaushik alleged that at the time of treatment, there was unbearable pain due to which there was swelling on his head and mouth. After the treatment, Dr Ajay K Dadwal, medical director of the clinic, assured that within three months, almost all the new hair shall start growing.

Kaushik said that he followed all the instructions of the clinic experts and remained in their touch but after three months, there was no growth of hair. However, the experts asked him to wait for three months more for the best results. But even after waiting for six months, there was no growth of hair. Finally, the complainant sent emails to the clinic for a refund of Rs 52,000 but to no effect. Following this, he filed a formal complaint in the consumer commission.

In reply, Studio-6 Life Style Clinic and its medical director submitted that Kabira Global Hair Transplant in Chandigarh has been running a support centre for many hair transplant clinics across India owned by them and other companies. The complainant signed a consent form before going through the procedure of hair transplant, wherein all the procedures, any complications arising out of the procedure were explained to him and that every person responds differently to the treatment so the company cannot assure the result of the treatment with 100 per cent accuracy. Moreover, the complainant has not followed the post-surgery instructions due to which the required density was not achieved. It was submitted that Kabira Global Hair Transplant has no role in success /failure of the procedure.

After considering contentions of both the sides, the commission observed, “It is a consent form signed in the relationship of a doctor and patient before conducting the operation where the patient is always under the influence of a doctor and the patient/person to be operated is invariably full of stress and anxiety with regard to 100 per cent success which was guaranteed in this case. Now a somersault was taken by the opposition parties (OPs) just to defend themselves or deceive the complainant while taking him on the operation table by declaring that it is not possible to guarantee a successful result.”

“The correspondence exchanged between the parties is evident of the fact that the OPs badly failed to produce the desired results despite having charged hefty amount of Rs 52,000 paid by the complainant on account of hair transplantation. Thus, we have no hesitation to conclude that the OPs are guilty of deficiency in service which certainly has caused immense mental and physical harassment to the complainant besides financial loss,” said the commission while directing Studio-6 Life Style Clinic, Dr Ajay K Dadwal and Kabira Global Hair Transplant to refund Rs 52,000 to the complainant, along with Rs 10,000 as compensation and Rs 7,000 as cost of litigation.