New Delhi, Apr 18: An IIT aspirant who quit a private coaching centre because of alleged poor facilities has got relief from Delhi's top consumer court, which has ordered the institute to refund the Rs.75,000 fee to him.
Delhi Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission member Salma Noor and Member (Judicial) V.K. Gupta pulled up FIIT JEE's Punjabi Bagh centre in west Delhi and ordered the refund to Prayank Madan, a resident of Vikaspuri in west Delhi.
"There are a catena of judgments of the national consumer commission as well as of this commission, that in case a student has attended (a course) only one or two days, then it is incumbent on the part of such institutes to refund the amount," the state commission said in a recent order.
"In the case in hand, there is a specific allegation that the institute is not up to the mark and the complainant had to discontinue it after two days," the commission said, dismissing FIIT JEE's appeal against a district forum order favouring Madan.
The institute now has the option of challenging the state commission's order before the national consumer commission.
The student's mother Sunita Madan, in her complaint in the district forum, said her son attended only two classes at the institute Aug 2-3, 2008, as it was a very tough course. Also, the quality of teaching was not up to the expected level.
She said when her son discontinued going to the institute she approached FIIT JEE to get refund of the fee but the officials refused to do that.
The district forum June 19, 2010, held that the institute was wrong to hold Madan's fee and directed FIIT JEE to refund Rs.75,000.
The institute challenged the forum's decision in the state commission and filed a written statement denying all the allegations and contending there was no deficiency in service on its part.
Noor and Gupta dismissed the institute's defence and said: "After going through the order of the district forum, we are in complete agreement with the law referred by it in the impugned order."
While the complaint was pending before the forum, the institute was told to deposit with it the entire amount paid by the student's mother.
"The institute has deposited Rs.79,415 and the district forum has deducted an amount of Rs.4,415 on the basis of the law laid down in various cases as referred therein and directed only the refund of Rs.75,000," the commission said.
Madan's mother said in her complaint that her son, who was preparing for IIT-JEE in a two-year classroom programme, went for inquiries July 31, 2008, and obtained admission into the course.
For the course, Madan issued cheques for Rs.1.23 lakh. However, payment of one of the cheques, worth Rs. 44,944, was stopped by her after her son stopped going to the institute, the complaint said.
As her son stopped attending the course, Madan wrote letters to the institute and sought a refund of the fee.
The complainant said she wrote several letters but there was no favourable re
