BEFORE THE DISTRICT CONSUMER DISPUTES
REDRESSAL COMMISSION, JALANDHAR.
Complaint No.296 of 2019
Date of Instt. 30.07.2019
Date of Decision: 11.01.2023
Sunil Khurana aged about 43 yrs s/o Late Sh. Krishan Lal Khuran r/o H. No.383, Shastri Nagar, Near Shiv Mandir, Jalandhar.
..........Complainant
Versus
1. Hotel.com Head Office Address, M/s Flight Raja Travel Private Limited, Magnolia, Block B, Level 4, Manyata Embassy Business Park, Outer Ring Road, Nagwara, Banglore-560045, Karnataka.
2. Armaan Resorts, Village Shuru, PO Prini, Naggar Road, Manali, District Kullu, Himachal Pradesh.
….….. Opposite Parties
Complaint Under the Consumer Protection Act.
Before: Dr. Harveen Bhardwaj (President)
Smt. Jyotsna (Member)
Sh. Jaswant Singh Dhillon (Member)
Present: Sh. Abhinandan Giri, Adv. Counsel for the Complainant.
OP No.1 exparte.
Sh. Atul Malhotra, Adv. Counsel for OP No.2.
Order
Dr. Harveen Bhardwaj (President)
1. This complaint has been filed by the complainant, wherein alleged that the complainant was desirous of visiting Manali in summer vacations with family and with respect to booking good hotel and the complainant engaged his service of the OP No.1 for booking of Hotel in Manali and the OP No.1 has booked Hotel with OP No.2 at Manali for 7th June 2019 to 9th June 2019 for two nights and four rooms were booked by the complainant through website of OP No.1 i.e. www.hotels.com, vide confirmation no.159599293428 and payment of Rs 39,731.28/- was paid by the complainant through online transfer from his Visa Card to the account of OP No.1 and confirmation was given to the complainant by the OP for the booking of four rooms at the resorts of OP No.2 by the OP No.1. On 07.6.2019 the complainant alongwith his family members reached at the Hotel of OP No.2 on the said booking date and complainant & his family members were got shocked from the Hotel of OP No.2 that there was no booking of the complainant of the above said dates in their Hotel. The OP No.2 has deliberately refused the booking of the complainant due to its peek seasons of tourist and gave the booking to some other tourist at higher rates. After listening to this, complainant and his family members got shocked and harassed in the said incident and the OP No.1 did not provide any other accommodation to this incident to the complainant and OP No.2 also did not provide any other accommodation to the complainant, after refusal from which complainant suffered huge loss of mental, physical as well as monetary loss from this incident. The complainant contacted OPs No.1 & 2 through email but no fruitful reply was given by OPs No.1 and 2 regarding the complainant bookings and for the refund for booking amount on 07.6.2019 to 9.6.2019, but OPs No.1 & 2 out rightly refused to accede to the complainant genuine requests hence present complaint before the OPs. The OP No.1 alongwith OP No.2 has played fraud with the complainant due to which the complainant and his family members suffered a huge loss of mental, physical as well as monetary loss due to which their vacation was a total disaster by opposite parties. There is clear cut deficiency and un fair trade practice on the part of the OPs, which caused mental tension, harassment, financial loss and agony to the complainant and as such, necessity arose to file the present complaint with the prayer that the complaint of the complainant may be accepted and OPs be directed to pay a sum of Rs.39,731.28 which the complainant spent for the hotel booking and damages to the tune of Rs.2,00,000/- due to the mental agony and harassment to the complainant and Rs.50,000/- as litigation expenses.
2. Notice of the complaint was given to the OPs, but despite service OP No.1 failed to appear and ultimately, OP No.1 was proceeded against exparte, whereas OP No.2 appeared through its counsel and filed written reply and contested the complaint by taking preliminary objections that the Commission has got no jurisdiction to try or decide the present complaint. As per the averments of complainant himself, complainant has alleged fraud on behalf of the OP No.1. It is further averred that the present complaint is not maintainable against the answering OP No.2. The complainant has failed to state what deficiency or negligence is attributed to OP No.2. The OP No.2 never gave any service or assurance to complainant. The complainant is not a consumer qua OP No.2 as OP No.2 never gave any assurances or services to complainant. It is further averred that the present complaint involves complex questions of facts and law. The present complaint requires elaborate evidence, expert evidence, examination and cross-examination of witnesses etc. due to which the present complaint cannot be decided in a summary manner by this Commission. The remedy, if any, lies before the Civil Courts. As such the present complaint is liable to be dismissed. OPs relied upon the case laws as under:-
Agnidhar Prasad Vs. M. D. Bihar State 1994 (1) CLT 419 (NC)
Chaman Lal Grover Vs. Area General Manager 1995 (2) CLT 242 (NC)
It is further averred that there is no privity of contract between complainant and OP No.2. Complainant booked hotel with OP No.1 directly online through website. The complainant also made payment to the OP No.1 online directly in the account of OP No.1. No part was played by OP NO.2 anywhere. No amount was received by the OP No.2. No promise or assurance was given by OP No.2 to complainant. OP No.1 played fraud with complainant and received amount and falsely informed complainant that OP No.1 has booked rooms in OP No.2. No intimation or information or permission or confirmation was given to OP No.2 by OP No.1 regarding the booking of complainant. Even complainant never confirmed from OP No.2 about booking. The complaint is a headless complaint. It does not state through whom complainant has sued OP No.2. As such, the complaint is not executable and is liable to be dismissed. On merits, all the allegations as made in the complaint are categorically denied and lastly submitted that the complaint of the complainant is without merits, the same may be dismissed.
3. Rejoinder to the written statement filed by the complainant, whereby reasserted the entire facts as narrated in the complaint and denied the allegations raised in the written statement.
4. In order to prove their respective versions, both the parties have produced on the file their respective evidence.
5. We have heard the learned counsel for the respective parties and have also gone through the case file very minutely.
6. The complainant has filed the present complaint on the ground that he had got booked the hotel through OP No.1 at their website www.hotels.com and the payment of Rs.39,731.28 was paid by the complainant through online transfer from his Visa Card to the account of the OP No.1 and the OP No.1 confirmed the booking. The complainant has proved on record the payment receipt of Rs.39,731.28. The receipt of booking hotel has been proved as Ex.C-2, which shows that the booking has been confirmed of Armaan Resorts and the date of Check in has been mentioned as Friday, June 7, 2019 with Check out date Sunday, June 9, 2019 and stay was for two nights and for four rooms. Total amount paid was Rs.39,731.28. The detail of the rooms has also been given in this document. The grudge of the complainant is that when they visited the hotel, they were refused to check in as there was allegedly no booking of the complainant the above said dates in their hotel. The complainant has proved on record the letter Ex.C-3, which shows that ‘there was no confirmation that the hotel.com for the date 7th check-in, 9th check-out. So, hotel was sold out and no accommodation was provided to the guest by the hotel as there was no confirmation to the hotel. Guest Name:- Sunil Khurana’. The contention of the complainant is as it was a peek season and the hotel was full because of this reason only, the complainant was refused check-in despite the confirmation. He has proved on record the emails sent to the hotel showing the conversation with the hotel.com Ex.C7, which is consisting of four pages. Perusal of Ex.C-7 shows that the hotel.com customer support has contacted the OP No.2 and the OP No.2 agreed to refund the last night charges confirmation for all rooms as the complainant arrived at hotel on 8th June, 2019. There is no document on the record to show that the complainant has checked-in on 08.06.2019. Even, otherwise the complainant has paid the amount of Rs.39,731.28 through his account for stay from 7th June, 2019 to 9th June, 2019, then why would he go on 8th June, 2019?, this cannot be presumed. OP No.1 has not come present to contest the complaint.
7. The OP No.2 has alleged that there was no privity of contract between the complainant and the OP No.2. So, there is no negligence or deficiency in service on the part of the OP No.2. The complainant is not a consumer qua OP No.2 nor the OP No.2 gave any assurance or services to the complainant. It has further been alleged that the complainant has alleged fraud on the part of the OPs, therefore the complaint is not maintainable in the present Forum as the complainant is not consumer. The OP No.2 has denied any relation or tie-up or agreement of any type between the OP No.1 and OP No.2 for any booking in the hotel or resort of OP No.2. The OP No.2 has also denied the receipt of any payment from the complainant.
8. The OP No.2 has filed on record only the reply to the notice issued by the complainant. From the documents filed by the complainant, this fact is proved that the complainant got hotel booked through hotel.com and the details of hotel were given as Armaan Resorts, Naggar Road Manali with phone number also. The OP No.1 is exparte, but the complainant has proved on record the emails sent by the OP No.1 to the complainant which show that OP No.2 agreed to refund of last night charges for all rooms, meaning thereby that this was the admission on the part of the OP No.2. To rebut this email, the OP No.2 has not produced on record any document to show that there was no tie-up or agreement between the OP No.1 and OP No.2. The OP No.2 has not raised any objection nor has filed on record any document to show that the action was taken against the OP No.1 for giving false information to the complainant regarding the admission of the OP No.2 for refund of last night charges for all rooms. The OP No.1 cannot get the hotel booked of his own unless and until there is any tie-up or agreement between the two. No list of the hotels has been filed by the OP No.2 to prove that with whom they have tie-up or agreement for the booking of the hotel. The rooms were confirmed as per the documents filed on record. The OP No.1 cannot confirm the booking of their own unless and until, they have positive nod from the OP No.2. Whether the amount was received by the OP No.2 or not, from the OP No.1, is a matter interse between the OP No.1 and OP No.2, but the fact remains and proved that the complainant has made the online payment of Rs.39,731.28, but he was not allowed to check-in the rooms as per booking. So, there is a negligence on the part of both the OPs and this is deficiency in service and unfair trade practice and thus, the complainant is entitled for the relief.
9. In view of the above detailed discussion, the complaint of the complainant is partly allowed and both the OPs are directed to pay a sum of Rs.39,731.28 to the complainant for the charges of hotel booking. Further, OPs are directed to pay a compensation to the complainant, to the tune of Rs.10,000/- for causing mental tension and harassment to the complainant and Rs.5000/- as litigation expenses. The entire compliance be made within 45 days from the date of receipt of the copy of order. This complaint could not be decided within stipulated time frame due to rush of work.
10. Copies of the order be supplied to the parties free of cost, as per Rules. File be indexed and consigned to the record room.
Dated Jaswant Singh Dhillon Jyotsna Dr. Harveen Bhardwaj
11.01.2023 Member Member President
