ADDITIONAL BENCH STATE CONSUMER DISPUTES REDRESSAL COMMISSION, PUNJAB, CHANDIGARH.

First Appeal No.1136 of 2022 Date of institution : 27.12.2022 Reserved on : 25.02.2025 Date of decision : 27.03.2025 Chairperson & Board of Directors, Indian Institute of Management, plot No.1, Sector 21, MIHAN (Non-SEZ) Nagpur-441108 through its Authorized Signatory Shri Ateendra Godbole S/o Late Shri Ashok Godbole the Senior Technical Officer, IIM Nagpur, Maharashtra (Mobile No.85275-55133 and E-Mail ID:

sr_officertech@iimnagpur.ac.in)

…..Appellant/Opposite party Versus Aditi Gupta D/o Shri Sanjay Gupta resident of Railway Road, Nangal, Tehsil Nangal, District Ropar, Rupnagar, Punjab, through her representative Shri Sachin Gupta s/o Darshan Lal Gupta resident of H.No.545, Giani Zail Singh Nagar, Ropar, Tehsil and District Ropar, Rupnagar, Punjab (Mobile No.75890-08283 and Email ID:

aditigupta94176@gmail.com)

….Respondent/Complainant First Appeal under Section 41 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 against the order dated 14.11.2022 passed by the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Ropar in CC/85/2022 Quorum:-

Mr. H.P.S. Mahal, Presiding Judicial Member Mrs. Kiran Sibal, Member Present:-

For the appellant : Sh. Anshul Jain, Advocate For the respondent : Sh. Jaideep Verma, Advocate KIRAN SIBAL, MEMBER The instant appeal has been filed by the appellant/opposite party against the order dated 14.11.2022 passed by District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Ropar (in short, the “District Commission”), whereby the complaint filed by complainant against opposite party (in short ‘OP’), under the Consumer Protection Act, was allowed as under:-

“6. In view of the above discussion, we allow the present complaint with the directions to the OP to pay the remaining amount to the tune of Rs.2,39,000/- along with interest @ 7% per annum along with Rs.50,000/- as compensation with Rs.11,000/- as litigation expenses…. ”

2. It would be apposite to mention that hereinafter the parties will be referred, as have been arrayed before the District Commission. 3. Brief facts for the disposal of the appeal are that Aditi Gupta, niece of complainant, had appeared in Common Admission Test i.e. CAT- 2020 organized by the OP on 29.11.2020. She scored 91.08 percentile in the said examination and got admission offers from various prestigious MBA/PGDM colleges in India including IIM Nagpur for 2021-23 batch. She got intimation of admission and documents verification from IIM Nagpur through mail on 02.07.2021. An offer acceptance fee of Rs.75,000/- was also required to be deposited by 03.07.2021. Since the time given for depositing the fee was less, the complainant made telephonic call to Post Graduate Programme In Charge at PGP office of IIM Nagpur, who assured her that in case she got admission offer from some better suitable college on or before 06.08.2021, the entire fee would be refunded after deducting processing fee of Rs.1,000/- from the total amount deposited as per guidelines of Ministry of Human Resource Development issued from time to time. It was also told by him that forfeiture clause in the admission offer letter was mentioned just to ensure that only genuinely interested candidates would apply for admission in their institute. After considering all these facts and getting confirmation from the PGP In Charge of OP, an amount of Rs.75,000/- was deposited by the complainant through online transfer on 03.07.2021. Subsequently another payment of Rs.2,14,000/- was deposited on 05.07.2021. Accordingly, a total sum of Rs.2,89,000/- was deposited by the complainant against the admission to the PGDM course. Thereafter Ms. Aditi Gupta, got admission offer from a better ranked college for PGDM and she withdrew her admission from the OP’s Institute by sending an email dated 31.07.2021 to it. Thereafter, the complainant followed up the matter for refund of fee with the PGP department, but the OP did not give satisfactory reply except verbal assurances. Thereafter, t