Restaurants are doubling the charges

Hyderabad February 13: Restaurants often charge more than the maximum retail price (MRP) on water bottles which customers tend to ignore. However, a reminder that it is, in fact, an unfair trade practice was made when Sarvi Hotel was asked to pay a customer 20,000 by the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum-II for charging him 40 for a bottle of mineral water instead of the MRP of 20.The ruling was made on January 5, after Ch. Kondaiah, a resident of Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh knocked on the district forum s doors with a complaint against Sarvi Food Court, located in Banjara Hills. Mr. Kondaiah told the forum that he had lunch there on 27 July, 2015, and was charged double the amount for a water bottle which had an MRP of 20.In his complaint, Mr. Kondaiah claimed that on being questioned, the manager of Sarvi had told him that charging over the MRP was the general practice. Sarvi Food Court in its defence quoted the ‘Principles of Hospitality Law treatise authored by Michael John Boella and Alan Pannett, that a customer is duty bound to pay the charges so perused by him in the menu card, and the customer is stopped from claiming that he was overcharged .The hotel s management also told the forum that Mr. Kondaiah had enjoyed Sarvi s ambiance and that he cannot claim any redressal. It also stated that ‘there is no evidence that the complainant visited the restaurant on the purported date, and the said bill could have been picked up in a waste paper at any place.