Consumer forum fines SpiceJet, travel agent for partial refund of flights cancelled during COVID-19 lockdown

The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission at Chandigarh recently imposed a penalty of ₹15,000 on SpiceJet and a travel agent for partial refund of fares for flights cancelled during the COVID-19 pandemic. [Prahlad Bhagat Vasudeva and Ors v. SpiceJet Ltd and Anr.].A coram of President Pawanjit Singh and members Surjeet Kaur and Suresh Kumar Sardana noted that the airline failed to explain why it withheld the refunds despite strict government guidelines to issue full refunds for flights cancelled during the pandemic."The OPs have utterly failed to explain as to on what account they have withheld the remaining ticket amount with them once there were strict guidelines by the Government to refund full ticket amount to the passengers during COVID period," the order noted..The Commission was hearing two complaints alleging that for flight bookings made in early April 2020, the airline had not issued a refund despite specific guidelines by the Ministry of Civil Aviation.The Ministry had issued an advisory to all airlines to issue full refunds without cancellation charges for flights cancelled between March 25, 2020 and April 14, 2020.In one of the complaints, the complainants received only ₹33,743 against ₹42,539 they paid for booking. In the second, complainants received ₹10,855 against ₹13,190.Aggrieved by rejection of their requests for full refund, the complainants approached the Commission..SpiceJet admitted the booking of the tickets and stated that as per a Supreme Court judgment, airlines were directed to create a credit shell for full fare collected to be valid upto March 31, 2021. This was then extended by one more year.It further stated that the complainants had already been refunded the fares with interest as per the Supreme Court judgment and the same had been sent by SpiceJet to the travel agent. .The travel agent said that he could not be held negligent in his conduct, as he had refunded the amount received by him to the complainants. .On examination of the evidence on record, the Commission noted that the tickets were booked on April 5 and 11, 2020 and that government guidelines indeed indicated that the airline was liable to refund the entire fare without levying any cancellation charges. Having observed that the airline and the travel agent failed to explain why they issued only partial refunds, the Commission held that they had illegally withheld the money against government guidelines. Therefore, it directed them to refund the entire booking fare along with interest. It added that interest would also be levied on the amount already refunded..Further, it directed SpiceJet and the travel agent to jointly pay ₹5,000 towards mental agony and ₹5,000 towards litigation costs in one complaint. In the other, it directed payment of ₹2,000 for mental agony and ₹3,000 towards litigation cost. .Advocates Nitish Kumar Vasudeva and Kamal Kant Verma appeared for the complainants..Advocate Gaurav Bhardwaj appeared for SpiceJet..[Read Order]