BENGALURU: A Bengalurean took Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) and North East Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NEKRTC) to a consumer court after the air-conditioning in the bus he and his family boarded failed to function, leaving them sweating during the night-long journey. The court recently held the transport utilities guilty of negligence and ordered the authorities to pay a compensation of Rs 15,000 to the family apart from refunding their ticket fares.
On May 5, 2017, BHM Darukesha, 44, of Marathahalli and his three family members boarded an AC sleeper KSRTC bus in Bengaluru to Kudligi, Vijayanagara district, after pre-booking tickets for the journey by shelling out Rs 2,795. But the family had a bad experience right from the beginning as the AC wasn’t working. Darukesha approached the bus conductor with a complaint but didn’t get a favourable response. He then sent an email from his cellphone to KSRTC, seeking redressal. However, the family was forced to bear the inconvenience despite having paid for AC sleeper tickets.
On arriving at the destination, Darukesha approached the local bus depot with a complaint, but in vain. After knocking on many doors for relief, Darukesha on March 5, 2019 approached Bangalore IVth additional district consumer disputes redressal commission in Shantinagar with a complaint against KSRTC and the divisional controller of Hospet division, NEKRTC.
Darukesha presented his case, while KSRTC’s attorney argued the case was false and an attempt to make wrongful gain from a reputed state transport utility two years after the said journey. While the Bengalurean stated the AC wasn’t working throughout the journey and the transport staff failed to take necessary action, the lawyer for both opposite parties said KSRTC was unnecessarily dragged into the matter to defame it. Moreover, the bus service to Kudligi comes under NEKRTC and the conductor did address the matter by immediately requesting Darukesha and his family to switch seats for better air-conditioning benefit, but they refused to move, the lawyer for the transport agencies claimed.
The judges of the consumer forum, however, took note of the letter sent by KSRTC to the complainant acknowledging the AC fault during the bus journey and offering him and his family a refund of Rs 131 per ticket towards the AC charges. Also noting that an email complaint on the AC malfunction was lodged by Darukesha to the transporter immediately after the commencement of the journey, the judges held that KSRTC and its sister agency were guilty of negligence towards passengers who had booked AC tickets to travel in comfort during peak summer.
In the verdict pronounced on July 16, 2021, the judges ruled that the managing director of KSRTC along with divisional controller of Hospet division must pay complainant Darukesha a compensation of Rs 10,000 for the inconvenience caused, Rs 524 as refund towards the AC portion of the tickets and Rs 5,000 towards the complainant’s litigation expenses, all within 45 days of the court order.
