Elder sues Sadashivanagar club for service deficiency, wins 10L refund

Bengaluru: Disappointed with the services of Sadashivanagar Club, a member approached the consumer court and won a refund of his membership fee of Rs 10 lakh for deficiency of service.N Jaiprakash Rao, 70, a resident of Malleswaram, said he had applied for the club’s membership following his friends’ recommendations and it was approved on July 31, 2019. He visited the club with his family soon after. However, he was appalled that there was no service offered at the reception or the restaurant. The part of the building at the main entrance was demolished and there was a dearth of parking space, he said in his complaint. Rao stated that the club, meant to foster social bonds, had an “asocial atmosphere” and its restaurant also failed to meet basic hygiene standards.He said it was tiring to look for parking spaces in the residential bylanes without causing trouble to any resident. He claimed he wrote to the club demanding a refund but never received a reply. He then approached the Bengaluru Urban Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission on May 26, 2022.The club denied that the consumer visited it with his family and that it came under the definition of consumer as it did not provide services but facilities. The club said it mentioned clearly all the facilities available on its premises and parking space was not one of them. Even though the consumer paid Rs 1.8 lakh as GST, the club said that it did not mean it provided any service.Disposing of the case recently, the consumer court found that the club was deficient in its service. It said that with a demolished building and no construction work going on the club premises, there could not be effective facilities provided and hence, it amounted to a deficiency of service. It also said the term service was comprehensive and any facility that the club rendered to its members for a fee was covered by the legal definition of the word.The court directed the club to refund the fee of Rs 10 lakh with 10% interest per annum, from the date of the complaint till the realisation. Also, the club has been ordered to pay Rs 50,000 to Rao towards litigation expenses.We also published the following articles recently