Seller responsible for defective room heater : The Tribune India

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Updated At:Jan 16, 202209:06 AM (IST)

Picture for representational purpose only.

Pushpa Girimaji

I bought a room heater from an online store last year. After just 15 days, it stopped working. Following my complaint, they sent me a replacement, almost at the end of winter. So this season, I took it out and it worked alright for a month but then suddenly one day, it caught fire. The flames destroyed an antique bookshelf and some valuable books, before it was put out. I am now asking the store as well as the manufacturer to compensate me for my loss, but they are refusing to do so. I want to file a case in the consumer court and want to know what evidence I need to gather for it.

First and foremost, check whether the room heater had an ISI mark. If it did not, that is enough to establish the room heater as ‘defective’ because (a) room heaters are under mandatory ISI certification to ensure their safety and to prevent just these kinds of hazards. The relevant Indian Standard is IS 302-2-30 (Safety of household and similar electrical appliances — room heaters). In other words, room heaters — and this includes convector heaters, fan heaters, liquid-filled radiators, panel heaters, radiant heaters and tubular heaters — cannot be sold without the ISI certification issued by the Bureau of Indian Standards and the ISI mark. And (b), the Consumer Protection Act of 2019 defines ‘defect’ as ‘any fault, imperfection or shortcoming in the quality or standard which is required to be maintained by or under any law or under any contract, express or implied or as claimed by the trader’. So the absence of the required standard certification makes the room heater a defective product.

On the other hand, if it did have an ISI mark, you can complain to the Bureau of Indian Standards and ask them to check the authenticity of the mark and also its quality. They will tell you whether it was a genuine or a fake mark — a fake mark will again mean that the product was defective. If it had a genuine mark, the Bureau will test the product and let you know the defect in it, in addition to taking action against the manufacturer under the BIS Act. That will help you in establishing the defect in the product and the cause of the fire.

The fact that the first room heater failed to work after just 15 days of purchase and the second one caught fire after one month also establishes the fact that the brand was sub-standard. So, do use the receipt showing the purchase of the room heater and your subsequent complaint and the replacement of the room heater, too, as evidence.

As far as the estimation of loss is concerned, get a surveyor or an antique dealer to give a proper assessment of the cost of the bookshelf and the books. Here again, if the books are very old and are invaluable because you cannot get them now, that adds value to the books. You can also add compensation for mental anguish caused on account of the loss of the bookshelf and the books. Do add as evidence pictures of the destruction caused by the fire. If you called the fire brigade or your neighbours came out to help extinguish the fire, their statements will also be important.

Can you mention any order of the consumer court in a similar case?

I cannot recall a similar case pertaining to a room heater, but I do remember an order of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission pertaining to a fire caused by an inverter. Here, the inverter had been installed on July 6, 2003, and the fire had occurred on October 29, 2003, and the fire personnel, who were called to extinguish the fire, had said that it was caused by a short circuit in the inverter. Taking into consideration the fact that the fire had destroyed several household electrical appliances and clothes, the National Commission upheld the order of the lower consumer court awarding the consumer a compensation of Rs2,50,000 and Rs25,000 as costs. (M/s Microtek International Pvt Ltd Vs Sanjay Varshney, Revision Petition No: 1439 of 2009, date of order March 17, 2015)

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The Tribune, now published from Chandigarh, started publication on February 2, 1881, in Lahore (now in Pakistan). It was started by Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia, a public-spirited philanthropist, and is run by a trust comprising four eminent persons as trustees.

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