Postal dept to pay Rs 32,000 for losing 9 parcels

NEW DELHI: The Postal department has been asked by the State Consumer Commission to pay Rs 15,000 compensation to a consumer for losing his nine parcels in transit. The department has also told to pay Rs 17,500 as cost of lost parcels.

Noting that the remedy under the Consumer Protection Act was "additional and independent" from any other rules applicable, the Commission allowed the appeal of H S Sharma, who had sought damages apart from the sum received by him under the terms of a contract with the department.

"Every consumer has an independent and additional remedy under the Act to seek compensation on account of loss suffered by him as well as for mental agony and harassment due to the negligence of the other party or deficiency in service," the Commission's President Justice J D Kapoor said recently.

Discarding the argument by the Delhi postal department that Sharma had already been paid according to the contract between them, the Commission said that the compensation under the Act had nothing to do with its uniformally applicable rule.

"The very fact that out of 20 packages nine were not delivered and were lost in transit, amounts to grossest kind of deficiency as it was obligatory upon the department to see that all the parcels given to it for delivery were delivered in good condition," it said.

Sharma, now living in Kolkata, had sent 20 parcels through the speed post service of the department in 2003 but he was taken aback to know that nine of these did not reach the destination and got lost in transit.

Holding the department guilty of deficiency in service, a district forum had in October 2004 asked it to pay the consumer at the rate of Rs 1,945 as the cost of each lost parcel. But aggrieved over not being awarded any compensation, Sharma filed an appeal in the Commission.