Chennai: The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Chennai (North) has directed an authorised service centre of Apple India Private Limited to service an iPad, which was given for service by a motor sports official and return it to him after repairing it.
In the petition, Ashish Gupta, a licensed senior steward who is one among international motor sport stewards in India, submitted that he planned to purchase an iPad for use during a bike racing meet. He had also planned to attend an international motor cycling racing meet in Qatar during September-October 2015.
He purchased an Apple iPad from Reliance Digital Retail Limited, Anna Nagar, for Rs 36,900 on May 31, 2011. He found the gadget was functioning very slowly. A service engineer of Future World Retail, an authorised Apple Service Centre, Anna Nagar East, collected '500 for servicing it on September 28, 2015. After upgrading the system, the iPad was not working and the customer refused to collect the gadget in the dead condition.
According to him, the service engineer handled the iPad negligently and spoiled it. All the important details were deleted and he suffered monetary loss and faced mental agony. The MD of Future World Retail, said the company engineer tried to install software, but failed. When the petitioner handed over the iPad it was not working.
Ashish Gupta insisted that the service engineer upgrade the iPad to the latest version and he would take the risk of any damage. While upgrading the device, it was not booting. The service centre had no role to play in hardware installation in the iPad.
The Apple India Private Limited MD said that the iPad2 product had one year warranty, which expired on June 29, 2012. There was no manufacturing defect in the product and hence the firm had not committed any deficiency in service.
The bench comprising president K.Jayabalan and member M.Uyirroli Kannan said admittedly even today the iPad 2 is with M/s. Future World Retail Pvt Ltd. The complainant sought relief of replacement of iPad with same description. These kinds of electronic items were manufactured with new models and improved versions almost every day and the service centre cannot replace same model of iPad 2.
The bench directed Future World Retail to service the product and hand it over to Ashish Gupta, in a working condition within 21 days.
