Delhi

West Delhi

CC/17/613

VINEET BHUWANIA - Complainant(s)

Versus

TATA SINGAPORE AIRLINES - Opp.Party(s)

04 Jan 2022

ORDER

BEFORE THE CONSUMER DISPUTES REDRESSAL COMMISSION-III (WEST)

C-150-151, COMMUNITY CENTRE, JANAKPURI,

NEW DELHI-110058

CASE NO. 613-17

IN THE MATTERS OF:-

VINEET BHUWANIA,

R/O A-2/55, 1^ST FLOOR,

RAJOURI GARDEN,

NEW DELHI - 110027                                                                                        ……COMPLAINANT                                  

 

       VERSUS                                                                                                     ……OPPOSITE PARTY

TATA SIA AIRLINES LIMITED,

JEEVAN BHARTI TOWER 1,

10^TH FLOOR,124 CONNAUGHT CIRCUS,

NEW DELHI - 110001

Coram:                                                                                                 

1. SONICA MEHROTRA (PRESIDENT)
2. RICHA JINDAL (MEMBER)
3. ANIL KOUSHAL (MEMBER)

Date of Institution: 23.10.2017

Judgment Reserved on : 16.12.2021

Date of Decision : 04.01.2022

Order by – RICHA JINDAL (Member)

 

ORDER

1. The complainant has filed the present complaint against OPs u/s 12 of Consumer Protection Act, 1986 .

 

2. The facts as alleged in the complaint are that

 

1. On 14.06.2017 the complainant had booked a ticket on Vistara Flights 992, Pune-Delhi sector, boarding from Pune vide e-ticket no. 2284994527881, PNR-MNTAOW, after paying a fare of ticket amounting to Rs. 7,209/-. When the complainant boarded the flight and seated on seat no. 15C, he asked for a vegetarian meal from Vistara stewardess, Sonali. On having started eating, he discovered that it was a non-vegetarian meal. He pointed it out to Sonali but she asserted that the complainant had indeed asked for a non-vegetarian meal. He responded that he was a vegetarian since birth and had consciously asked for a vegetarian meal. On her insistence that she had not done so, He refused to make any request for a replacement meal. A little while later, Sonali came back to apologies. He was appalled to note she was giggling while making her apology. Hence, he asked for a feedback form. He had to follow-up for the feedback form four times before it was handed over to him. Since the conduct of Vistara’s staff had made him doubtful if the form filled by him would be shared with relevant authorities at the Airlines, he emailed a complaint to Custrelations@vistara,com, on June 15, 2017. On these facts, feeling aggrieved by the OPs, complainant filed the complaint wherein, he prays that OP be directed to:

1. Apologize individually and collectively to him for the conduct of its staff and senior management.
2. Issue a public apology for misleading advertisement in form of emails to all people to who the ‘match’ offer was made plus an apology ticket on its website for seven days; and
3. Provide full information to the general public and invitees on the discrimination between regular tier members and match members.

Accordingly, court notice was issued to the OPs.

 

3. OP appeared and filed written statement in which OP states that

1. Complaint is ambiguous, conceals material facts without any cause of action, hence, liable to be dismissed. It further states that while all allegations (including as explained below) made by the complainant in his email dated 15.06.2017 were unsubstantiated, OPs nevertheless did not arbitrarily dispute any of the allegation and relying on Complainant’s version of the events, the following measures were adopted by OPs for effective resolution of the grievance of the Complainant:

1. The customer relations team of OPs vide an email dated 16.06.2017 apologized for the inconvenience caused to the complainant and informed that the matter was being investigated.
2. The crew member in question was examined as to the incident whereby the crew offered an explanation. The true facts pertaining to the incident that surfaced during the investigation carried out by OPs  are as follows:

• That the Complainant had asked for a meal box, however, inadvertently the crew member had heard that the Complainant had in fact asked for a non-vegetarian meal box.
• That the crew member had diligently cross-checked with the Complainant but the Complainant being occupied neither heard properly nor responded to the query.
• That once the crew member served him and left, the Complainant pressed the call bell button and enquired if the meal was ‘non-vegetarian’ to which the crew member answered in the affirmative.
• When the Complainant apprised her that he is a “pure vegetarian”, she tendered an unconditional apology and offered to replace the meal. The Complainant categorically refused to take the replacement and asked the crew member to leave.
• However, the crew member informed her senior official about the matter but the Complainant declined to entertain any explanation that was being offered to him.
• It is pertinent to note that the crew member persistently apologized to the Complainant during the course of the flight for the inconvenience caused to him, if any and enquired if he would like to eat something but the complainant turned a deaf ear to all the efforts.
• Despite the act of the concerned crew member of OPs, being inadvertent, unintentional and as such also attributable to the Complainant, the customer relations team of OPs sent an apology email to the Complainant on 20.06.2017, wherein the Complainant was duly informed that the feedback for the cabin crew had been highlighted to the head of in-flight services for review and corrective measures. The Complainant was also informed that the staff of OPs had been briefed to be extra careful while handling such situations in future.

2. Further OPs state that they lay emphasis on maintaining the highest standards of integrity and high quality of service to its passengers, both in air and on the ground. Although the Complainant did not solicit a response to his email dated 15.06.2017, it would have been against the policy of OPs to ignore the complaint and thus, grievance of the Complainant was adequately redressed.
3. It is submitted that despite thorough investigation into the matter and timely and effective steps being taken to ensure that grievance of the Complainant was completely redressed, the Complainant had no intention to put an end to the matter as much as he kept sending offensive emails to the senior management of OPs, including, an email to Mr. Phee Teik Yeoh, the CEO of TSAL, on 21.06.2017 with extremely offensive and racial contents wherein he mentioned that “Your silence only affirms that the combination of carnivorous Singaporeans and Parsees have anything but contempt for sensitivities of vegetarians”. Nevertheless, prioritizing customer satisfaction, Mr. Lawrence D’Souza, Head-Customer Engagement responded to the Complainant’s E-mail on 22.06.2017 informing the Complainant that since Mr. Yeoh was on leave he was writing on his behalf. Mr. D’Souza once again apologized to the Complainant and assured that OPs  understands the seriousness of the situation and corrective measures have been taken to ensure that such incidents are not repeated in the future. The Complainant was informed that senior members from the cabin crew division have been involved in addressing this matter and the concerned crew member has been counseled towards being more sensitive in handling such situations. As per OPs, the highly offensive content of the Complainant’s emails was not responded to in the same vigor, with the hope that the Complainant would eventually desist from addressing such correspondence to OPs in the future. However, after receiving the spur of emails infused with unwarranted ethnic and religious slurs, OPs were constrained to block the Complainant from sending any further emails to TSAL in order to protect the interest of its employees. Thereafter, the Complainant resorted to the social website, “Twitter”, wherein he had launched a purported ‘Twitter Satyagraha’, with series of anti-Vistara tweets and tagged, Mr. Ratan Tata, as well. The tweets posted by the Complainant contained highly preposterous and seriously defamatory comments were communicated to a large number of people throughout the world, thereby posing a serious threat to the reputation of OPs and its various stakeholders, including, employees and shareholders. The said tweets seemed to have been designed/targeted to damage the reputation of OPs and thereby divert business away from OPs and by no stretch of imagination come across as a manifestation of a bonafide passenger grievance.
4. It is pertinent to note that OPs recognize the value of objective and honest passenger feedback. However, the Complainant’s tweets were far from being genuine customer feedback and amounted to a mala fide attempt to defame OPs. In the circumstances, OPs was compelled to issue a legal notice through its advocates, dated 26.07.2017 directing the Complainant to delete each and every defamatory tweet and refrain from tweeting any defamatory/racial/offensive content against OPs in the future. The Complainant acknowledged his mistake and apologized. The Complainant further deleted all the tweets pertaining to the said issue.  Thus the present complaint is liable to be dismissed with costs.

 

4. Complainant filed rejoinder to the replies of OP controverting the stand taken by OPs and reaffirming the contents of his complaint. When the parties were asked to lead evidence, the complainant filed affidavit of evidence testifying contents of the complainant. On the other hand, OP through Mr. Niyant Maru, A/R A/R filed affidavit of evidence reaffirming the contents of reply on oath. Written arguments were filed by complainant and OP.
5. We have carefully gone through the record of the case and have heard submissions of the parties and perused the record.
6. In view of the aforesaid discussion and circumstances of the case, we are of the considered view that when there is material to show that a petition styled as a complaint is nothing but a camouflage to foster personal disputes or vendetta to bring to terms a person, not of one’s liking, to gain publicity or a façade for blackmail, said petition has to be thrown out. Before we grapple with the issues involved in the present case, we feel it necessary to consider the issue it should not be “paise income litigation”. If not properly and strictly regulated at least in certain vital areas or spheres and abuse averted it becomes also a tool in unscrupulous hands to release vendetta and wreck vengeance, as well as to malign not only an incumbent to be in office but demoralize and deter reasonable or sensible and prudent people even agreeing to accept highly sensitive and responsible offices for fear of being brought into disrepute with baseless allegations. There must be real and genuine grievance involved in the litigation and concrete or credible basis for maintaining a cause before commission and not merely an adventure of knight errant borne out of wishful thinking. It cannot also be invoked by a person or a body of persons to further his or their personal causes or satisfy his or their personal grudge and enmity. Courts of justice should not be allowed to be polluted by unscrupulous litigants by resorting to the extraordinary jurisdiction. The credibility of such claims or litigations should be adjudged on the creditworthiness of the materials, averred and not even on the credentials claimed of the person moving the courts in such cases. A person acting bona fide and having sufficient interest in the proceeding of Complaint will alone have a locus standi and can approach the Commission to address his grievance, but not for personal gain or private profit or political motive or any oblique consideration
7. In our opinion, admittedly the complainant as alleged is demanding apology which complainant has already received vide email dated 20.06.2017, apart from other relief. However, the Complainant did not approve of the aforesaid offer and instead went ahead and filed the present complaint before the Ld. DF so that the OP succumb to the pressure and the Complainant is successful in his malafide intention and have unjust enrichment at the cost of the OP.

 

8. The complainant had failed to seek any other relief by way of quantifying of compensation, for which we are empowered to grant pursuant to the provisions of Section 14 of Consumer protection Act. In the light of facts and circumstances discussed above & the legal proposition, we hold that the present complaint is not maintainable against OP’s for deficiency in service and unfair trade practice against the OPs. Since, the complainant has already received the apology before filing of the complaint and this fact was very well in the knowledge of the complainant also, we, therefore dismiss the present complaint for want of sufficient cause of action.

 

9. Let a copy of this order be sent to each party free of cost as per Regulation 21 of the Consumer Protection Regulations, 2005.

 

10. File be consigned to record room.

 

11.  Announced on 04.01.2022.

 

(Richa Jindal)         Member

(Anil Kumar Koushal)               Member

(Sonica Mehrotra)                         President