HC stays Rs 50L cost imposed by NCDRC on eating joint

The Delhi High Court has stayed the apex consumer commission's order directing a fast-food joint at Chennai airport to pay Rs 50 lakh to the consumer welfare fund for selling eatables at prices which were more than the maximum retail price (MRP).
A bench of Justice Manmohan also issued a notice to the Delhi-based complainant on whose plea the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) had asked Snack Bar, a unit of Saptagiri Restaurant, operating from Kamaraj Domestic Terminal at Chennai.
The NCDRC had on March 4, 2014 directed Snack Bar to pay Rs 10,000 as compensation to the complainant D K Chopra for selling him an energy drink for Rs 140 when its MRP was Rs 75.

The Commission had also observed that the eating joint had "exploited the public" under the very nose of the Airport authority and that "it had no right to keep and misappropriate the public money".
"We, therefore, order that the opposite party (Snack Bar) will deposit a sum of Rs 50,00,000, the estimated rough amount, with the Consumer Welfare Fund," the NCDRC had said.
In its appeal against the NCDRC order, Snack Bar has contended that the Commission has not appreciated the fact that the MRP of items sold at airports "is different vis-a-vis the same products sold in the open market".

The high court has listed the matter for further hearing on November 7, 2014.