Popular retail chain Big Bazaar has been asked to pay Rs 11, 518 as fine for asking a customer to pay Rs 18 for a cloth bag.
As per reports, the customer named Baldev Raj who is a resident of Haryana’s Panchkula district had complained to the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum that a cashier of the retail chain had charged him Rs 18 for a cloth bag to carry items he had purchased there on March 20 this year.
Raj complained that the store is following an unfair trade practice as it had not mentioned anywhere that he would be charged for a cloth bag.
Big Bazaar had now been asked by the forum to pay Rs 10,000 to the Consumer Legal Aid Account and Rs 1,518 to Raj for wrongly charging him.
Out of the total Rs 1, 518, Rs 1,000 has to be paid as compensation for harassment and mental agony and Rs 500 as litigation expenses.
However, Big Bazaar representatives claimed that it had not charge Raj wrongly and the price of the carry bag was properly displayed in the store.
They also claimed that the price of the carry bag had been added in Raj’s bill only after his permission.
They also claimed that the store was not selling carry bags commercially and was only reimbursing a fraction of the price taken to produce a cloth bag.
However, the forum refused to heed to the claims of the retail chain and added that charging for a bag from a customer amounted to unfair trade practice and deficiency in service.