A consumer court has ordered Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) to refund the ticket fare & pay a compensation of Rs 7,000 to a Bengalurean. Reason: The utility's bus failed to pick up the man, his wife & their toddler-son, leaving the family stranded on road one night last year.
Sunil Kumar, a resident of Se shadripuram, his wife & their four-year-old son were on a personal visit to to Hariharapura in Chikkamagaluru district & were to return home on May 25, 2018. They had booked non-AC sleeper seats on a Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) bus from Sringeri to Bengaluru & were waiting for the vehicle to arrive.
Much to the shock of the family, the bus whizzed past them at Hariharapura stop around 9.30pm even as Kumar, 42, desperately tried to flag it down. The panic-stricken family called on the conductor's cellphone number provided in the official alert he had received earlier, but in vain. Around 10.30pm, the conductor returned the call only to inform Kumar that the bus had reached Narasimharajapura far away from Hariharapura & their reserved seats had been allotted to other passengers.
Kumar claimed his family, including the little boy, spent the entire night cowering in fear in the open in NR Pura area as they couldn't get any vehicle due to the careless act of the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) staff. The following day, he gave a written complaint to Sringeri Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) booking office but received no response. Finally, he approached the Bangalore Urban District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum on November 27, 2018 & sued KSRTC's managing director, its divisional controller (central) & the in-charge of the booking counter in Sringeri for dereliction of duty & service deficiency.
Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) counsel claimed the complaint was false, asserting the bus had indeed reached Hariharapura stop at 9.40pm & waited for Kumar & his family for 10 minutes. The conductor tried calling Kumar, but he was unreachable, he said.
He further argued that the bus had to leave considering there were other passengers on-board & the readings of the Vehicle Tracking Monitoring System (VTMS) validated the claims of the driver & conductor for the day.
On Monday, the consumer court delivered its verdict, slamming Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) for twisting facts related to recordings of the bus's VTMS & cheating a genuine passenger. An examination by the court uncovered that at the mentioned time the bus was 40 minutes from Hariharapura & it didn't halt at the designated stop, thus failing to pick up Kumar & his family.
KSRTC's claim that the bus waited for 10 minutes for the customer was a lie, the court held. Moreover, there is no evidence on the claim that the conductor called the passenger, the judges observed.
The court ordered the MD of KSRTC & his subordinates to jointly pay a compensation of Rs 5,000 to Kumar for the inconvenience caused. This apart, the judges ordered that the state transporter pay an additional Rs 2,000 towards the victim's court expenses & also refund the family's ticket price (Rs 1,310), all within six weeks.
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