A Chennai based consumer court has ordered the conglomerate ITC to compensate a consumer a burly sum of Rs 1 Lakh. The order came because a biscuit was missing from the 16 unit packet of "Sun Feast Marie Light".
The incident took place when a Chennai resident, P Dillibabu, bought two dozen packets of "Sunfeast Marie Light" from a store in Manali. He bought the packets as a gesture of goodwill towards stray animals. However, upon opening the packs, Dilibabu found that one of the packets had a biscuit missing in it, according to a report in TOI.
Dilibabu sought a response from both the store and ITC but received unsatisfactory responses. This egged him on to knock the doors of the consumer court.
Dillibabu's complaint concerned more than just one missing biscuit; he noted that each biscuit cost Rs 75 paise, and considering that ITC is thought to produce close to 50 lakh packets per day, he calculated that the company may have deceived the public by an astounding sum of more than Rs 29 lakh every day.
ITC defended itself by claiming that the selling of the goods was based on weight rather than the quantity of biscuits. Each biscuit packet's net weight was listed on the packaging as 76 grams. However upon investigation, it turned out that all of the 15-biscuit unwrapped biscuit packs weighed just 74 grams.
The Consumer Court has ordered ITC to pay a sum of Rs 1 Lakh as compensation for the said incident. Moreover, the court has also order ITC to discontinue the sales of the biscuit — "Sunfeast Marie Light".
