‘Not on whims, fancies’: Supreme Court trims woman’s ‘faulty haircut’ compensation to Rs 25 lakh from Rs 2 crore | India News

D Supreme Court It reduced the compensation awarded to a woman for a “defective haircut” at a luxury hotel salon from Rs 2 crore to Rs 25 lakh, ruling that damages must be supported by material evidence.A bench of Justices Rajesh Bindal and Manmohan, in a judgment delivered on February 6, said that while “deficiency in service” has been established, compensation in consumer disputes cannot be based on “mere want” or “fancy and whimsy” of a complainant.Justice Bindal, who authored the 34-page judgement, said, “Compensation cannot be awarded merely on the supposition or conjecture and imagination of the complainant. To make a case for compensation, especially when the claim runs into crores of rupees, some credible and reliable evidence has to be led.”The judgment held that the case is not a minor dispute where the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission can award compensation using a thumb rule or rough estimate.“The claim for compensation was for crores of rupees, which required establishing that the respondent had suffered some loss due to deficiency in service. This could not be established merely by producing photocopies of the documents. Even the discrepancy between the photocopies produced on the record of the respondent, as pointed out by the appellant, was not noticed even after the remand of the case … of such huge compensation,” the judgment said. The court said the apex consumer panel erred in awarding Rs 2 crore as compensation based on photocopies of documents. It rejected the panel’s view that reliance on photocopies was justified because the complainant could not retain the originals due to trauma, noting that this could not justify such a large award.The judgment added that there were other means of proving the claim even if only photocopies were available.“Even though the Code of Civil Procedure may not be strictly applicable, the Commission has not assessed how the respondent suffered a loss of Rs. 2,00,00,000/-. General discussion of adverse judgment may not justify the same,” the judgment said.Aashna Roy visited the hotel salon in 2018 and asked the staff to trim about four inches (10 cm) from the ends of her hair. However, the hairdresser cut off most of her hair, leaving just four inches from the top, her hair barely touching her shoulders.The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission awarded damages on the basis that Roy was an established model and the haircut affected her career. The court then said that the incident had led to “serious emotional breakdown and trauma”.