Big Bazaar directed to pay Rs 1 lakh for overcharging customer

Retail chain Big Bazaar will have to shell out Rs 1 lakh for charging Rs 90 extra from an East Delhi resident Sarita Narain who has said that she was "cheated" and "harrassed", an Economic Times report has said. 

A consumer forum has directed Big Bazaar to pay Rs 20,000 to Narain and deposit Rs 80,000 in the customer legal aid account in lieu of the offense. 

On June 13, 2012, Narian, who had shopped for above Rs 3,000 from the retail chain, found that she had been overcharged for turmeric -- Rs 160 against printed maximum retail price (MRP) of Rs 90 and Rs 40 each for two soaps with Rs 30 as MRP. 

The forum maintained that charging a customer above the MRP is illegal. In this case, Narain had been overcharged for Rs 90.  

Over and above the penalty, the forum has also asked the chief commisioner of income tax, secretary (finance) of the Central and the Delhi government to find out if Big Bazaar had indulged in any other such incidents. 

The company has, however, called it an inadvertent oversight" on the part of the staff, and not a deliberate act.