Landmark Court Decision against Internet ISP SIFY BroadBand

Consumer wins case against SIFY Limited for Deficiency in Services and Unfair Trade practices carried on at a very large scale, after two years of legal battle at the District and State Consumer Forum level !

Delhi’s North-West District Consumer Forum has by its order dated 08 Nov ‘06 directed India’s ISP SIFY Ltd ( SIFY BroadBand ) to pay compensation of Rs 8,200/- including refund of Rs 1,200 paid for two months internet connection to a consumer, Ankur Raheja, an IT lawyer by profession for indulging Unfair Trade Practices and deficiency in service.

The case related to non disclosure of significant terms and conditions, which included reduction of Internet connection speed to 14 Kbps after a download of 750 MB data in a month and a later condition for penalising customers by one day, if download exceeds 150 MB in a day. These were hidden conditions, never disclosed to a customer, have been held as Unfair Trade Practices.

It has been regarded as a landmark judgement as for the first time technical deficiency has been proved in the court of law in India against an Internet Company. And also Court interpreted the matter from the point of view of TRAI’s definition of Broadband, which lays down criterion of minimum speed of 256 Kbps to be regarded as ‘BroadBand’. Accordingly, Court has held providing of 14 Kbps speed instead of 256 Kbps is in itself a ‘deficiency in service’.

It has also been held that SIFY BroadBand has poor customer service that did not redress to Customer complaints and selling packages as ‘Unlimited Packages’ when there existed Hidden conditions, amounts to deficiency in service on the part of SIFY Limited and indulging into unfair trade practices.

The case was supported in the Cyber World by hundreds of SIFY customers from all over India, who all experienced similar problems and supported the case throughout, whose testimonials were also included in the original complaint as Annexure!

Source:
i-Newswire.com - Press Release And News Distribution - Landmark Court Decision against Internet ISP SIFY BroadBand
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I am glad
Atleast now they will notice that we cannot be taken for granted

hope ... Other ISP's ... are more Careful & give better services now....

hope someone from exactnet delhi gets their eyes on this one.
they sure could learn something from this decision.

some IT lawyer got p1$$3d and sued the heck out of sify

dunno if us normal folk can do the same

Great news!! From now on, these *beeps* will be on their toes!!

fantastic. I just hope a few more people sue sify on the same grounds.

^^ yeah.. one case aint gonna help our cause.. more cases and against more isp's is the only way to teach em buggers a lesson.

Karan will be Relived now

Hurrah...i know there will be champange flowing on one particular broadband forum.

Yup...and the case took two long years to resolve

How many of us are willing to spend so much time in the court for the paltry compensation that is being offered???

The isps have nothing to worry bout...they'll continue to lie, steal and torture us like they usually do...unless they start slapping some heavy fines...

great news...someone had to do this...glad he won !

Good judgement, but then is it?
Think of it this way. Over a period of 2 years, an ISP cons customers and gets fined 8200. Is it enough. Will it even make a minute dent on their balance sheets!
The lawyer was not the only one hurt. Many others were cheated. Unlike the US, this was not a class action suit.
These companies will shrug off such minor fines.
The ideal way is to make the fine so hefty that the company stock price falls. Unless we have such deterrents, sellers will make fools out of consumers. India is still a seller friendly scene. You can cheat 500 hundred people, make lakhs. One of them sues and then you pay a few thousands to that person. You cheat, you violate agreements, but our judicial system ensures you end up richer.

OOOOOOO yeah... finally... it's been done... o by the way does this mean all our anytime internet plans are all gonna be converted to unlimited?

i think it would rather cause the opposite to happen