A consumer court in Karachi has ordered MG Motors Pakistan to pay its customer Rs. 500,000 in reimbursement and damages after it failed to deliver his vehicle on time despite collecting full payment for it.
Judge Javed Ali Korejo of the Consumer Protection Court (East) has ordered MG to pay the complainant, Arsalan Riaz, compensation and damages for “mental agony” as specified by clause(e) of Section 32 of the SCPA 2014. He has also fined the company another Rs. 50,000 under Section 33(1) of the Sindh Consumer Protection Act, 2014 for “providing faulty services”, and ordered it to deposit the amount in the government treasury within 30 days.
The court has notified the car company that its noncompliance will result in “imprisonment for a term not less than one month, which may extend to three years, or with fine, not less than Rs. 50,000 or both as per Section 33(2) of the SCPA, 2014”.
After disposing of the complaint, the court ordered for a copy of the order to be sent to the defendant company via the SHO of the concerned police station for intimation and compliance.
The final proceedings of the case will be conducted on 18 April.
Case Details
Riaz’s counsel, Advocate Rajesh Ambani, had stated that his client had ordered an MG HS Exclusive Trophy Grade vehicle on 11 June 2021, with a pay order of Rs. 2 million to the company as a provisional booking order, while the sum was Rs. 5,763,000. The company had originally claimed that the vehicle would be delivered in October 2021 after the first and final payments were made but did not follow through.
A legal notice was sent to MG Motors Pakistan on 10 November 2021 but the company did not respond to it. Its representative had later appeared in court in response to a notice and had requested that the company’s name as “defendants” be removed, which the court granted.
The judge revealed that the defendant company’s representative had not shown up in the courtroom to defend it and had not even hired an attorney, as a result of which ex-parte proceedings were initiated.
He concluded in light of all of the facts that the complainant had suffered financial losses after spending a huge amount of money on the car in question, and agony because it was not delivered on time; circumstances which had forced him to approach the court.
Consumer’s Argument Accepted By Court
The court has observed that because the matter had gone ex-parte and the complainant’s version/contention had remained unchanged, it had to accept his petition.
The judge has directed MG Motors Pakistan to either provide the subject car (MG HS Exclusive Trophy Grade) to the complainant within 30 days or return the principal sum of Rs. 57,63,000 with a 15 percent per annum increase until the sum is collected.
Delayed deliveries are a norm in Pakistan where the majority of car companies collect initial and full payments for the new vehicle but provide no surety of timely deliveries. A number of netizens had previously criticized the MG brand for collecting money for vehicles that are not delivered on the time even after months.
Via Dawn
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