Rs 30 carry bag charge costs shop Rs 26,000: Gurgaon Consumer Commission orders compensation to customer

The Gurgaon consumer commission recently decided that charging consumers Rs 30 for three carry bags is an unfair trade practice and this amounts to deficiency in service. President Sanjeev Jindal and Members Smt. Jyoti Siwach and Smt. Khushwinder Kaur of the Gurgaon consumer commission said that Sub Section 5 of Section 36 of the Sale of Goods Act 1930, clearly states that unless otherwise agreed, the seller is responsible for the costs associated with making the goods ready for delivery.

So, according to legal provision, all costs related to packaging And similiar expenses should be borne by the vendor (shop) to ensure the goods are ready for delivery.

Keep reading to know the details of the case.

Why did the shopkeeper seek extra money for the bags?

On August 31, 2025, Mr Jain from Sector 14, Gurgaon went shopping in Satya the Hive, in Dawarka Expressway, Near Dhankot village, Sector-102, Gurugram and bought certain items, for which he paid Rs 4,713.

Since there were quite a few items, Mr Jain asked the shop manager for a complimentary bag as couldn’t carry everything home by hand.

However, the shop did not give him any complimentary carry bag and instead charged him an additional Rs 30 for three carry bags.

Mr Jain knew the law and argued that by charging money for the carry bags, the shopkeeper had violated the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 and so he filed a legal case. Jain was represented by Advocate Ms. Aarti S. Jain before the Gurgaon Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission.

On August 4, 2026 Mr Jain won the case in Gurgaon consumer commission. The consumer commission ordered that the shopkeeper must pay compensation for mental harassment, pain and agony and also litigation expenses. The toal comes to Rs 26,000.

Also read: Customer charged Rs 10 extra for a carry bag: Consumer commission orders Rs 30,000 payout; says retailers like 'Reliance, D-Mart', Zudio must bear cost of making goods deliverable

How Jain won this case?

Sonam Chandwani, managing partner, KS Legal Associates said to ET Wealth Online that the short answer is that the retailer had no defence to offer, and chose not to appear at all. Once a party stays away, the complainant's account of the transaction goes untested, and the Consumer Commission is entitled to proceed on that basis. In my experience, retailers stay away from these matters precisely because the practice is difficult to justify when someone is actually asked to justify it.

On the substance, Chandwani says that her view is that a carry bag cannot be treated as a separate article of sale. It is the means by which the seller performs its own obligation, which is to place the goods in the hands of the buyer in a condition in which they can be taken away.

According to Chandwani if a customer has purchased items he/she cannot physically carry, delivery is incomplete until the seller provides the means of carrying them. She says: "To charge separately for that is, in effect, to charge the customer for the seller's own performance."

The manner in which the charge is imposed is equally objectionable. According to Chandwani, it is not disclosed at the entrance, it is not disclosed on the shelf, and it does not appear on the price tag. It is disclosed at the billing counter, after the customer has selected his goods, queued, and committed to the purchase, and at a stage where refusal is not a practical option.

Chandwani says: "Most large formats will not permit a customer to walk out with unpackaged merchandise in any event. Consent obtained in those circumstances is not consent in any meaningful sense. It is acquiescence extracted from a customer who has no alternative available to him."

Chandwani also says that she is unpersuaded by the environmental justification that these establishments routinely advance. If the object were genuinely to discourage the use of plastic, the bag would be withdrawn rather than priced. A bag that is sold is a bag that is still being distributed, with the difference that the retailer is now earning on it.

Also read: Red Tape ordered to pay Rs 8,000 compensation after charging customer Rs 10 for carry bag

Gurgaon district consumer disputes redressal commission order analysis

The Gurgaon consumer commission cited two related judgements (Big Bazar, NCDRC and Lifestyle, Chandigarh State Consumer Commission). In these two judgements also the consumer commission found that the respective stores (Big Bazar and Lifestyle) could not have charged extra money for carry bags.

Big Bazar, NCDRC- 2020

The Gurgaon consumer commission said that the act of charging money for carry bags is settled by the National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission (NCDRC)judgement in the case of Big Bazar (Big Bazar(Future Retail Ltd.) Vs Ashok Kumar, Revision Petition NO.975 of 2020 decided on December 22, 2020).

NCDRC in the Big Bazar judgement has rejected the argument of Big Bazar that consumers need to pay extra charges in cases where the customer wished to obtain the carry bag. Moreover, NCDRC also rejected Big Bazar’s argument that the carry bags were sold on a no profit and no loss basis and also that they requested customers to carry their own bags.

The reason for this as explained by NCDRC is big stores like Big Bazar never allowed the customers to carry bags in their hands within their store premises knowing very well that if they were allowed to do so, then, customers would not easily give their consent for the purchase of the carry bag. Thus Big Bazar was taking advantage of its dominating position.

The Gurgaon consumer commission also said that NCDRC observed that if Big Bazar claims itself to be responsible and environmentally conscious, then, they should have given the carry bags to the customers free of cost because the price of the carry bag has generally been included by them in the profit margins of the product(s).

NCDRC thus ruled in that case that by employing unfair trade practice, Big Bazar was minting a lot of money from the gullible customers from all their stores situated across the country.

Lifestyle, Chandigarh State Consumer Commission-2019

The Gurgaon consumer commission also cited a judgement of the Chandigarh State Consumer Commission in the case of M/s Lifestyle International Pvt. Ltd. Vs. Pankaj Chandgothia (Appeal No. 24 of 2019).

In the Lifestyle case, Chandigarh State Consumer Commission said that it is Lifestyle’s duty to provide free carry bags to all its customers who purchase articles from its shop. The Chandigarh State Consumer Commission also said that the Plastic Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2011 had already been amended on March 18, 2018 and Rule 15 had also been omitted as well.

Since the law has been changed, the Chandigarh State Consumer Commission said that Lifestyle cannot take the shelter of the said rule (Rule 15) which stipulated that no carry bag shall be made available free of cost by retailers to its customers.

Thus on this ground, the Chandigarh Consumer Commission in that judgement ruled that Lifestyle must pay Rs 3,000 compensation to the customer and deposit Rs 10,000 for Consumer Legal Aid.

Gurgaon consumer commission order

The Gurgaon consumer commission said that in their considered view if the practice of charging for carry bags is continued to be adopted in the Nation by the big stores/shopkeepers/vendors, it would defeat the very purpose of the Consumer Protection Act, and that the crores of the outlets in the whole of India will use the same language “Bags security refundable” and further that a new trend to extort the money from the customers would start in the Nation, and, thus, the crores of consumers would be in the clutches of these type of daily outlets.

Thus, the Gurgaon consumer commission ruled that the shop where Mr Jain shopped is guilty of deficiency in services and this amounted to unfair trade practice, thus on this ground Jain wins.

The Gurgaon consumer commission directed the shop to refund Rs 30 (for three carry bags) along-with interest @9% per annum from the date of its payment i.e. w.e.f. August 31, 2025, till its realisation and also pay Rs 15,000 for mental harassment, pain and agony and Rs 11,000 as litigation expenses.

The Gurgaon consumer commission also said that if the shopkeeper does not pay the compensation by complying with its order then Jain can file an execution petition under Section 71(1) of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.

If the shop does not pay and Mr Jain files an execution petition, then the shop might be held liable for prosecution. If the court then finds the shop guilty then its owner can be sent to jail for at least one month and maximum three years or imposed with a fine of at least Rs 25,000 and maximum Rs 1 lakh or both jail and fine.