Reported By:
| Edited By: Rakesh Bhatnagar |Source: DNA |Updated: Nov 19, 2013, 11:17 PM IST
Students are consumers and educational institutes service providers and making bogus claims amounts to deficiency of service for which students are entitled to compensation under the Consumer Protection Act.
The Supreme Court ruled so in a case where students were cheated when a dental college wrongly claimed in an advertisement that it was affiliated to the Magadh University and the Dental Council of India.
The court directed the bogus Buddhist Mission Dental College in Bihar to pay Rs 22 lakh as combined compensation to 11 students who lost two academic years by joining the institute and paying capitation fee too.
A bench of Dalveer Bhandari and HS Bedi said, “We are of the opinion that the appellant institute by giving totally misleading and false advertisement clearly misled the respondents (students). The respondents (students) have lost two valuable academic years, which would have tremendous impact on their future career.”
The bench upheld the national consumer panel’s order. Dismissing the dental college’s appeal, the judges said the compensation of Rs2 lakh would be in addition to the Rs30,000 penalty imposed on it by the National Consumer Redressal Commission .
Clean chit for newspapers
In a related development, the Delhi high court ruled that newspapers and periodicals could not be held responsible if there is a defect in a product advertised in their pages.
Justice Pradeep Nandrajog quashed a Delhi lower court order directing certain newspapers to issue a disclaimer, with each advertisement, saying the features or qualities of products advertised were not guaranteed by the newspaper.
One Rajan Verma purchased a Nokia mobile handset that later turned out to be defective. He approached a lower court seeking a compensation of Rs3.27 lakh after Nokia failed to repair his set. He also sought a direction to newspapers from publishing Nokia advertisements. The lower court directed Nokia to pay Rs1.27 lakh to the complainant and directed newspapers to issue a caution with advertisements.
