Court Orders Sony Mobile To Pay Rs 50,000 For Failing To Repair Her Phone

New Delhi: A consumer court in Assam has ordered that Sony Mobile Communication and its two local outlets must pay over Rs 50,000 to Nina Bairagi. This decision comes after the company failed to repair her mobile phone nearly nine years ago, leaving her with a long-standing unresolved issue.

The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission of Kamrup on July 26 ordered Sony Mobile Communication along with its Sony Center retail outlet in Christian Basti and its Service Center on Rajgarh Main Road to pay compensation within 45 days.

The commission has ordered Sony Mobile Communication, the Sony Center in Christian Basti and the Sony Service Center on Rajgarh Main Road to pay Nina Bairagi Rs 40,000 plus 10 per cent interest for "physical harassment and mental agony" from the date she filed her complaint. Further, they must pay Rs 10,000 to cover the cost of proceedings. If the payment is not made within 45 days, the amount will incur 12 per cent interest until fully paid.

After a prolonged trial and proceedings since the filing of the case in 2016, the commission convicted Sony Mobile for its deficiency in service and also directed to repair the mobile handset within 45 days besides paying the compensation.

Bairagi had purchased a Sony Mobile handset from the Sony Center on August 10, 2015, on payment of Rs 52,990. After one month, the phone dropped from her hand and as a result, it became inoperative. The complainant had then approached the Sony Service Center, but the service engineer informed her that the repair of the said model was not available and the only option left was to get a replacement at a cost of Rs 25,000.

Bairagi had also contacted the service head of Sony Mobile at its country headquarters in New Delhi several times through emails but in spite of assurance to redress the grievance within 48 hours, it was not done. After that, she filed a complaint with the Consumers' Legal Protection Forum, Assam. On the basis of that grievance, the forum filed a case with the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission of Kamrup.

The three respondents had in their written statement to the commission termed the complaint "frivolous" and was an "apt illustration of flagrant abuse of the benevolent provision of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986". (With PTI Inputs)