Failure to find a bride on Matrimonial site falls under a Deficiency of Services
Ananya Jaiswal,
Banaras Hindu University
Failure to deliver assured services falls under deficiency of services. Kerala Matrimonial Site fails to deliver its services to a man who has alleged that the website has not performed its services and failed to provide him with a bride. The matrimonial website’s failure to provide necessary services to its customer makes it (Kerala Matrimony) liable, and it is entitled to pay the compensation along with the refund amount.
The District Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum (DCDRC) at Ernakulam, Kerala, has ordered the matrimonial site to pay 25,000 rupees as compensation (excluding the costs incurred for filing the litigation and refund of subscription fees) for failure to deliver its services.
Deficiency of Services means when a service provider fails to provide its services or the services don’t match the standard that is claimed by the service provider or under any existing law that the person has hired or availed of in return for consideration. The service provider will be held liable for any deficiencies in the services.
The Kerala Matrimonial site provides the service of providing brides. The complainant entered his biodata on this matrimonial website in 2018. After entering the information, he was approached by a representative of the matrimonial site at his residence and office. He was asked to pay 4,100 rupees as subscription fees for three months. The subscription fee was charged for advance services so that he could be matched with a suitable bride for him.
The complainant said that he had sought some potential matches but was asked to take a subscription for detailed information on the suitable matches. Therefore, he paid for the subscription in January 2019. However, after the payment of the subscription fee, his calls to the matrimonial website went unanswered, and all the attempts to contact them failed.
Enraged by all this, he filed a complaint to the consumer forum, seeking relief from this exploitation and other reliefs.
Kerala Matrimonial Site has argued before the consumer court that after being enrolled in the classic package, the complainant was allowed to access various profiles and communication details.
It argued that it is an intermediary only, and its service is to provide access to the various information relating to the suitable matches on the website, which it did, and nothing more than that can be done by them.
It was further submitted that they had provided access to 50 profiles that were suitable matches for the complainant. The complainant had ample choice to choose among them. The company has claimed that they earlier communicated these terms to the complainant. They further submitted that they had never claimed to arrange the marriage of the complainant; instead, they were merely a mediator.
However, the district consumer dispute redressal commission found no substantial evidence that the matrimonial site has performed its services as promised. The consumer court has ordered the matrimonial website to pay 25,000 rupees as compensation, 3,000 rupees as litigation cost, and to refund the subscription amount of 4,100 rupees to the complainant.
Conclusion
The services rendered by the matrimonial websites also fall under the definition of services under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. Therefore, any deficiency in providing services on their part will come under the deficiency of services, and the service provider will be held liable for their acts.
Reference:
Praisy Thomas, Consumer courts orders 25k compensation to man who sued Kerala Matrimony over failure to find a bride, Bar and Bench (June 17th, 2024, 10:36 AM), https://www.barandbench.com/news/consumer-court-compensation-kerala-matrimony.