Taxi Driver Online

Cabbie pays for wedding chaos




CHANDIGARH: To make his son’s wedding an affair to remember, Prem Singh of Sector 32 hired six taxis — by making an advance payment of Rs 1,500 —
for transporting the ‘baraat’ from Chandigarh to Shimla. However, he had to cut a sorry figure when the taxis didn’t turn up on the D-day.

For humiliating him in the eyes of his friends, relatives and particularly would-be-in-laws, UT consumer forum directed Kanan Tour and Travels to pay Rs 20,000 as compensation and refund Rs 1,500 — taxis’ booking price — and Rs 2,500 as litigation cost.

The forum — headed by Jagroop Singh Mahal — said, “The plight of complainant can be well imagined. Though he had arranged for it, he could not take the baarat in the cars for the wedding of his son. It all happened due to the greed and non-sensitivity of the taxi operator towards social norms and requirements.”

According to his complaint, instituted under the Consumer Protection Act, Singh on November 25, 2007 waited for the taxis, but when they did not come, he rang up taxi operator, who said they were on their way. However, after waiting for half-an-hour, he again called up the operator. Allegedly this time the operator didn’t respond to his calls. He then had to make alternative arrangement.

“Due to heavy schedule of marriages during that period, only one taxi could be arranged and that too at a heavy price of Rs 3,000. Singh had to cut a sorry figure before his relatives as he had promised to provide transportation,” the complaint claimed.

A notice was sent to taxi operator to which Satinder Kumar proprietor of Kanan Tour and Travels replied that it was agreed that Singh would pay half of the amount in advance, but he did not. He claimed that it was him who tried to contact Singh, but in vain and suffered losses.

On this, the forum held, “It appears the taxi operator may have diverted taxis earmarked for the complainant to some other function and may have earned there from more than the amount to be paid by the complainant.”

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin