Customer challenged Rs 10 extra carry bag charge at Shoppers Stop; company said he knew bags were not free; consumer court ordes him to pay Rs 10,000

A Hyderabad-based consumer commission has dismissed a complaint filed by a man who objected to being charged Rs 10 for a carry bag at a Shoppers Stop outlet, and instead ordered him to pay Rs 10,000 in costs for what it called a frivolous case.

The complainant, Sureshkumar Amruthaluri, had purchased clothes worth Rs 1,609 from the store on March 10, 2025, and was charged Rs 10 extra for a carry bag as part of the bill. He approached the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission seeking compensation, arguing the charge amounted to an unfair trade practice.

A repeat of an old complaint


According to the order, this was not the first time the same issue had come up before the commission. The complainant had bought goods worth Rs 14,708 from the same store in August 2023 and was charged Rs 13 for a carry bag on that occasion too. He had filed a separate complaint over that charge in 2024. Despite being aware that the store charges for bags, he did not carry one of his own on his next visit and was billed Rs 10 again, which led to the fresh complaint now dismissed by the commission.

What Shoppers Stop argued

Shoppers Stop told the commission that the price of the carry bag was displayed clearly in the store and charged only after obtaining the customer's consent. The company placed photographs on record showing signage at several points in the store, including near the entrance, asking shoppers to avoid taking a carry bag.

The company argued the complaint was not a genuine grievance but a repeat of an issue already raised once before, and said this amounted to an abuse of the legal process. In support of this, it cited the Supreme Court's ruling in K.K. Modi vs K.N. Modi, which held that re-litigating an issue already tried and decided earlier is an abuse of the process of court, regardless of whether it is technically barred by res judicata.

A pattern of complaints

The commission also examined the complainant's litigation history and found he had filed several other cases before it, all as a party in person. These included a complaint against a supermarket over carry bag charges, one against a telecom company over recharge reminder messages that he said caused him harassment, and one against a travel platform and an airline over a flight booking issue.

He had also sought replacement of a television without producing a purchase bill, in a case that was rejected at the admission stage itself. In another complaint, he had asked for cinema ticket refunds across all six screens of a mall for an entire week, because a toilet in the building was under repair with a note asking visitors to use another one downstairs.

What the commission ruled

The commission held that the complainant had failed to show any deficiency of service or unfair trade practice on the part of Shoppers Stop. It observed that he was neither a consumer activist nor a social reformer, but appeared to be a habitual litigant misusing the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, for personal gain.

It further noted that such conduct wastes the valuable time of the commission and discourages genuine consumers from approaching it with real grievances. Referring to earlier National Commission rulings, including United India Insurance Company Ltd vs Mohan Lal & Sons, Anup Kumar vs SM Kanwar and Ganesh Felts vs New India Assurance Co, the commission observed that filing grossly inflated or false claims is a misuse of its process and needs to be discouraged through heavy costs.

The complaint was dismissed, and the complainant was ordered to pay Rs 10,000 as exemplary costs. Of this amount, Rs 5,000 will go to Shoppers Stop and the remaining Rs 5,000 will be deposited into the Consumer Welfare Fund Account maintained by the commission. The order gives him 45 days to comply from the date he receives it. The judgment was pronounced on August 31, 2026.