Rasleen Kour
The Indian Central Consumer Protection Authority, constituted under Section 10 of the Consumer Protection Act 2019 responsible for regulating various matters pertaining to infringements of rights of the consumers including unfair trade practices, has recently held and barred, through an order, the hotels and restaurants from levying service charges on food items from their customers either automatically or by default.
A service charge basically is a fee that is collected by industries for the services provided by them to their customers in the form of administrative or processing cost. These service charges paid by the consumers goes directly to the company that levies the same and does not actually count for the consumption made by the former. In other words, a service charge is an additional fee that is levied by a company simply for the services being provided to the customers and the same is not charged for the purchase or consumption made by these customers. The levying of service charge now comes under ‘unfair trade practice’ as defined under Section 2(47) of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 according to the order of the Central Consumer Protection Authority.
In my previous article published in Daily Excelsior on May 29, 2022 I had talked about the prevalent practice of shopkeepers in not issuing an ‘original bill’ to the consumers for purchases made in their shops and the same amounts to an ‘unfair trade practice’ recognised under the above named legislation. Another type of unfair trade practice acknowledged under the Act today is service charge which has now been banned by the Central Consumer Authority as the same amounts to violation of the rights of the customers.
Since a service charge is an unlawful trade practice the aggrieved customers can actively exercise their rights by lodging a complaint online, against such charge being levied on them, in National Consumer Helpline portal that works 24 hours for remedying the grievances of the consumers or by simply dialing 1915 for registering the same. E Daakhil, another portal for speedy redressal of consumer grievance, can also be utilised for seeking solutions to consumer complaints by logging to e-daakhil.nic.in.
We therefore need to be aware about the latest developments in society that can directly affect the enjoyment of our rights and the only way we can enjoy them is by being vigilant consumers.
(The author is lawyer and is currently pursuing Masters in Law from University of Jammu)
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