A more than six-year long legal dispute between a law student and online retail place Amazon has finally come to a close, with the latter being handed an overall penalty of Rs 45,000 to be paid to the student.
Dating back to 2014, the case was filed by Supriyo Ranjan Mahapatra, a law student, for an ¡®unfair trade¡¯ experience he faced on the retail website. At the time, Mahapatra came across an offer on Amazon that allowed him to buy a Rs 23,499 laptop for just Rs 190.
After placing the order, Mahapatra was contacted by the Amazon Customer Care Service Department within two hours, to inform him that his order was cancelled. The service cited a price recession issue for the order, as reported by?Bar and Bench.
The broken deal left the student disappointed as he needed a laptop urgently for a project. Instead of accepting the cancellation, Mahapatra decided to send a legal notice to Amazon. Subsequently, he even filed a complaint before the District Forum seeking Rs 50,000 as compensation for mental agony and Rs 10,000 as the cost of litigation.
Amazon contested the complaint stating that the agreement was between a third party seller on its platform and the consumer, leaving Amazon out of the legal equation.
The District Forum, however, blamed Amazon for negligence in its service as well as unfair trade practice. It reasoned that the student had already accepted Amazon¡¯s online offer and chosen a payment method. As a result, Amazon was asked to pay Rs. 10,000 compensation to the complainant and Rs. 2,000 to the District Forum.
Dissatisfied with the judgement, Mahapatra approached the Odisha State Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission for the previously sought compensation amount. The Commission now reached a similar decision as the District Forum and increased the penalty amount.
¡°When there is advertisement made for offer placed by the OP (Amazon) who is a reputed Online Shopping Website and made offer as per the materials available on record and the complainant placed the order and same has been confirmed, the agreement is complete between the parties,¡± the State Commission ruled as per the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.
The Commission also pointed out that Amazon cannot shed its responsibility in the matter as the retailer was operating on its platform. It thus found Amazon to be liable to pay penalty for a breach of contract once it is complete.
Conceding with the appeal, the Commission has now enhanced the damages to be paid by Amazon to Rs 30,000 in compensation for its unfair trade practice. In addition, it has to pay a sum of Rs 10,000 as punitive damages and a litigation cost of Rs. 5,000.