Vadodara: A family’s trip to Varanasi to attend their daughter’s wedding reception turned into a painful cancellation after she died just four days before the wedding. Nearly four years later, a consumer forum has ordered SpiceJet to refund the full airfare, holding that the airline failed to give any plausible reason for the deduction.Narhar Halbe of Subhanpura in Vadodara had booked four return tickets on SpiceJet from Ahmedabad to Varanasi for Jan 2022, when his daughter Samruddhi’s wedding reception was scheduled. He paid Rs 30,358 through a travel agent.However, Samruddhi died four days before her wedding, following which the family cancelled the Varanasi trip. Halbe approached the airline seeking a full refund, citing the tragic circumstances. Instead, the airline offered travel vouchers to family members who were in the complainant’s first blood relation. It refused even a voucher for Halbe’s son-in-law-to-be, saying he did not fall within that category.Halbe emailed the airline about 10 days before the scheduled journey and later submitted the death certificate and other documents sought by it. However, the airline did not agree to a full refund. The travel agent eventually refunded only Rs 9,344 from the Rs 30,358 paid, said advocate Rinkal Shah, who represented Halbe.Halbe subsequently filed a complaint against SpiceJet and the travel agent before Vadodara District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (Additional) in Aug 2022 through NGO Jagrut Nagrik.The airline argued that the refund was governed by ticket cancellation rules and that it had offered full-value travel vouchers as a humanitarian gesture. It also claimed that the refunded amount was paid after deducting applicable cancellation charges.The commission, however, noted that Rs 21,014 had been deducted from the ticket amount without the airline specifying the clause under which the deduction was made or giving a reasonable explanation for it. The forum held that such an unexplained deduction amounted to unfair trade practice.The commission ordered SpiceJet to refund the deducted Rs 21,014 with 8% interest to Halbe. It also directed the airline to pay Rs 2,000 towards mental agony and Rs 1,000 towards litigation costs. The complaint against the travel agent was dismissed.
