Ghaziabad: A parcel was booked. Nine years later, it’s still missing. Now, the consumer commission has ordered the courier company to pay Rs 28,300 in refund, with Rs 5,000 in compensation. The company initially refused to pay, saying the customer never disclosed the parcel’s value or bought insurance, but the commission ruled that the company was still responsible.The complaint was filed by Yogesh Garg, representing M/s Radhika Collections from Modinagar, on July 18, 2019, against the Ghaziabad offices of DTDC Express Ltd, its offices in Kanpur and Meerut, along with the head office in Bengaluru.He said he booked a carton containing 23 parcels at the DTDC Express branch in Modinagar on Nov 23, 2017, to be sent to Kanpur. The company promised delivery in two to three days, but the parcel never reached its destination.Garg said he sent an email to the company on March 15, 2018, but got no response. He blamed the company’s negligence for the loss of goods worth Rs 28,300, adding that it also hurt his firm’s reputation and goodwill.The company stated that the complaint is not admissible because the parcel was not insured, and neither the value of the parcel nor a description of its contents was disclosed at the time of booking. It said that the service was availed for commercial purposes, and therefore, the complaint is not maintainable under the Consumer Protection Act.“The parcel was sent with utmost care and necessary precautions; however, it was damaged during transit. Under the terms of the agreement, their maximum value of liability is limited to only Rs 500,” counsel for the company said.Having heard both sides, commission president Anil Kumar Pundir and members Shailja Sachan and RP Singh decided to consider three points of determination: whether the complainant is a consumer under the Consumer Protection Act, whether its complaint is maintainable, and whether the defendants are guilty of deficiency in service.The commission noted that the company’s main argument is that the complainant is a business firm and the courier service was hired for business purposes. Therefore, it is not a “consumer” under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.However, in the present case, the complainant did not acquire the services from the opposite party for commercial gain; instead, it engaged the courier service to safely transport parcels from one location to another.“The courier service itself was not a means of generating profit, but merely an auxiliary service for the transportation of goods. Furthermore, the opposite party has not presented any evidence to prove that the disputed courier service was directly operated by the complainant for commercial gain,” the commission held.Considering the other two issues, the commission said that in the present complaint, the opposite party has admitted that the parcel was lost in transit. “The loss of the parcel in transit itself constitutes a serious deficiency in service,” the commission held, further rejecting the defendants’ claim that their liability is limited to only Rs 500.“National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, New Delhi, and the Supreme Court have, from time to time, established the principle that a service provider is responsible for the actual damage caused by its negligence and cannot be completely absolved of responsibility based on one-sided conditions,” the commission ruled.If the order is not complied with within 30 days from the date of the judgment, the opposite parties will be liable to pay Rs 28,300 with simple interest at 6% per annum from the date of filing the complaint.
