BENGALURU: Having failed to find a match for a woman doctor, a matrimonial website was asked by the Bengaluru Urban District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum to return the fee to her father, along with interest and other costs.
The Forum, comprising president S L Patil and member P K Shantha, ordered elitematrimony.com to repay the fee of Rs 55,000 along with 6 per cent interest and Rs 5,000 in compensation, besides Rs 2,000 as litigation cost to Ramakrishna (name changed), a resident of Preethi Layout of Sriramapuram in Mysuru.
Ramakrishna had moved the forum as Elite Matrimony had failed to find a match for his daughter, Dr Anitha (name changed).
In its order, the Forum said that despite payment made by the complainant (Ramakrishna), Elite Matrimony had failed to find a match and declared that no prospective groom could be found as a match for Dr Anitha. Despite Ramakrishna issuing a legal notice dated April 26, 2018, there was no response from Elite Matrimony.com.
“Therefore, we came to the conclusion that the facts narrated in the complaint are true. Hence, Elite is liable to repay the fee along with interest from the date of fee paid on January 8, 2018, compensation and litigation cost,” the Forum said.
According to the order, Ramakrishna, after seeing ads on the internet, requested Elite Matrimony to find a match for his daughter. He was asked to pay Rs 55,000 as fee.Ramakrishna, who is retired, paid the fee from his pension on January 8, 2018.
As there were no results even after three months, Ramakrishna visited the office of Elite Matrimony in Bengaluru. He was told there were no grooms who had completed a medical course, and who belonged to Scheduled Caste (Adi Karnataka), as desired in the complainant’s application, as a match for his daughter.
Ramakrishna then requested Elite Matrimony to refund the fee as he wanted to use it for a surgery to be performed on one of his legs. But it was not refunded, amounting to alleged deficiency in service .On receiving the complaint, the Forum ordered notice to Elite Matrimony, which failed to respond. The Forum then passed the exparte order, compensating the complainant.