Hyderabad: The Guntur District Consumer Forum has ordered Panasonic India Private Limited and its dealers to pay compensation for falsely claiming that its television sets would run for 30 years. The Forum termed this as an unfair trade practice and advertising claim by Panasonic.
On June 28, the Forum gave the ruling on a complaint by Mr C. Anthony Reddy, an assistant professor of English at a pharmacy college based out of Guntur.
The complainant had approached the Forum against Panasonic, its officials in Vijayawada, Vijay TV and Video Home in Guntur and Real Care Service Centre — an authorised service centre for the electronics firm. He had purchased a TV for Rs 50,000 in 2009.
“I was attracted by the advertisements of the opposite parties and especially with the brochure. They issued a warranty card for the TV. The company promised 1,00,000 hours i.e., 30 years, at eight hours of daily viewing. I used the TV a total of for four and a half years without any trouble. But in the July of 2014 the TV simply started malfunctioning.”
He added: “The technician checked the TV and said there was a problem with the motherboard. But even after two months the problem was not rectified,” alleged the complainant in the petition.
Panasonic in its counter contended that the warranty card was valid for one year and argued that the contention that the company had to provide service for a period of 30 years was not right since the same was not mentioned in the warranty card.
The forum, after going through the evidence, concluded that Panasonic was liable to pay compensation since there was deficiency of service and because all the opposite parties had resorted to unfair trade practices.
The Forum directed the opposite parties to pay Rs 53,000 towards compensation along with Rs 10,000 towards compensation for mental agony and Rs 5,000 towards costs of the litigation.
