Consumer Grievance
Mrs. Maggie sent a jacket to a Clear and Clean Dry cleaners pvt. ltd. (A well reputed brand Name) in January 2022. The jacket was purchased at a price of Rs. 45,000. She had previously sent the jacket for dry cleaning by Shine Dry Cleaners and the jacket was cleaned well. However, she noticed that her jacket had white discoloration marks when she collected the jacket this time. On informing the dry cleaner, Mrs. Maggie received a letter confirming that discolouration indeed appeared after the jacket was dry-cleaned. She contacted the dry cleaner and its Public Relation Manager multiple times and requested for compensation for discoloured jacket but to no avail. Upon Consumer court’s intervention, Shine Dry Cleaners agreed to compensate Rs. 25,000 to Mrs. Maggie for the discoloured jacket. Later, the Public relations department of the company issued a clarification regarding the above case.
Which consumer responsibility is fulfilled by Mrs. Maggie?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Filing a complaint in an appropriate consumer forum
Option (1) Forming consumer societies to educate others — Incorrect. Forming such societies is a real consumer responsibility, but Mrs. Maggie acted alone, for her own jacket.
Option (2) Trying to get more discount by warning the business — Incorrect. This is not a consumer responsibility at all. She asked for compensation for the damage, not for a discount.
Option (3) Settling the case with the business firm out of court — Incorrect. Her requests to the dry cleaner failed. The firm paid only “upon Consumer court’s intervention”, so the case was not settled out of court.
Option (4) Filing a complaint in an appropriate consumer forum — Correct. One of a consumer’s responsibilities is to file a complaint in an appropriate consumer forum in case of a shortcoming in the quality of goods purchased or services availed. Dry cleaning is a service, the service was faulty, and she took the matter to the consumer court.
Note: The passage is adapted from the application exercise on Mrs. Mathur at the end of the chapter ‘Consumer Protection’ in the NCERT textbook; NTA has changed the names and the amounts. This question is part (c) of that exercise. NTA picks case studies from the exercises too, so solve the questions at the end of every NCERT chapter.
NCERT (2026-27 Edition): “…She had previously sent the jacket for dry cleaning with Shine Dry Cleaners and the jacket was cleaned well. However, she noticed that her jacket had white discoloration marks when she collected the jacket this time. On informing the dry cleaner, Mrs. Mathur received a letter confirming that discolouration indeed appeared after the jacket was dry cleaned. She contacted the dry cleaner multiple times and requested for compensation for discoloured jacket but to no avail.” “(c) State which consumer responsibility has been fulfilled by Mrs. Mathur in the above case.” “(viii) File a complaint in an appropriate consumer forum in case of a shortcoming in the quality of goods purchased or services availed. Do not fail to take an action even when the amount involved is small.” |