HOLIDAY REPRESENTATION Vs. SUDHIR SARAN BHATNAGAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) RESPONDENT /complainant along with his wife went to Australia for site seeing on 9.3.2001. He had booked his itinerary through the petitioner/opposite party - Holiday Representation. While in Australia from 11.3.2001 to 24.3.2001, he encountered two unpleasant and inconvenient episodes; first with regard to the booking of his accommodation in Batman's Hill Hotel at Melbourne, alleging that the voucher for the booking of accommodation in Batman's Hill Hotel at Melbourne issued by M/s. ATS Pacific, Sydney wrongly stated the booking of a double bedroom accommodation for three persons, whereas he had booked it only for himself and his wife; thus creating confusion which took about two hours to resolve, which delayed his checking in by two hours as a result of which, he lost an opportunity to visit the Victoria Market. In the second incident, the transport facility from Cairns Airport at Brisbane to the Hotel as promised was not made available for which he had to telephone to Palm Royale Hotel where he was to stay, who later sent the vehicle but even that vehicle had to wait for some more time to pick up passengers coming by another flight. In the process, the complainant was delayed by about half an hour, loosing valuable time for sight -seeing and marketing as no hotel bus, for sight -seeing was available after 7.00 p.m.

(2.) THE complainant had also alleged that the petitioner/opposite party had charged much more amount than was offered by another travel agent and all these amounted to gross deficiency in service.

(3.) WHEN no response was received from petitioner/opposite party to the notice issued by him, a complaint was filed before the District Forum. The District Forum vide its order dated 7.9.2002 held the petitioner/ opposite party to be deficient in service and made them liable for compensation which was quantified at Rs. 50,000 and further imposed a litigation cost of Rs. 10,000.