HYDERABAD: A 45-year-old man whose bike, KTM Duke 390, was stolen from an authorised service station and found three months later in a totally damaged condition, won his battle against the latter at a consumer forum and was awarded a full refund of Rs 2.2 lakh and compensation of Rs 85,000.
The incident occurred in February 2016 when A Madhusudhan Raju took his brand new bike for servicing to Vinayaka Mobike private limited to fix the brake lever.
Until the fourth day, the service centre was tight-lipped that the bike was stolen from its centre. Raju was shocked when he was finally informed. All he could do was lodge a police complaint. The police, however, found his bike after three months but it was severely damaged. There was a 1-inch hole in the engine, the forks were broken and most other damages too were hard to repair, Raju alleged in his complaint. As the bike cannot be fixed with repairs, Raju claimed a total refund from the service centre from where it was stolen.
The service centre, however, wanted Raju to accept the bike after repairs. Baffled, as his 90-day-old bike was totally damaged, he approached the consumer forum. He said that he had to go 8 months without a bike and he was put to mental agony. The forum held that the photographs submitted showed that the vehicle was damaged after being stolen from the service centre.