A consumer court in Karachi on Monday imposed a collective fine of Rs50,000 to Careem, a private private transportation service, for providing "defective service" and causing "mental agony" to a client.
Junaid Iqbal, executive director of Careem Pakistan, was found guilty of providing defective services in contravention of Section 13 of the Sindh Consumer Protection Act, 2014.
Judge Javed Ali Korejo ordered the defendant to deposit a fine of Rs25,000 with the nazir (official) of the court. He was also ordered to pay Rs15,000 to the plaintiff as damages for causing mental agony and Rs10,000 as a professional fee incurred in the litigation.
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The court ordered the defendant to pay the amount within one month or face prison punishment for a period not less than one month, which can be extended to three years, or with a fine not less than Rs50,000, or both according to Section 33 (2) of the Law.
Attorney Mehmood Ahmed Khan filed a complaint with the court regarding a trip he booked with Careem from Gulistan-i-Jauhar to Saadi Garden on May 26.
The plaintiff said that he along with some guests and children were picked up by a driver named Mohsin Ahmed Lodhi from the transportation application. Khan said he asked the driver to follow his friends, who were on a motorcycle, but the first one did not listen and drove recklessly, endangering the lives of the passengers.
The plaintiff said the driver was annoyed when he was repeatedly asked to follow the motorcyclists and dropped the passengers, who were fasting during the month of Ramazan, in the middle of the road halfway.
The driver also used insulting and vulgar language, he added.
Lawyer Khan alleged that he filed a complaint online with the company, but did not receive a satisfactory response from management, adding that they did not even respond to the legal notice sent to him.
On the other hand, lawyer Altamash Faisal Arab, who represented the CEO of Careem, argued that his client was not responsible for any act or omission on the part of the drivers, called "captains" by the company, since they were independent third parties. Third-party service providers that operated through the Careem platform to transport customers.
He added that drivers are solely responsible for their acts and omissions. The lawyer asked the court to dismiss the complaint for not being maintainable for the hearing without approving any orders.
However, the judge noted that the head of the defendant's legal team, Aleena Zainab Alavi, admitted that 25 percent of the fare for each trip came to the company while the remaining 75{7be40b84a6a43fc4fae13304fce9a2695859798abfc41afd127b9f8b21c5f9c5} was paid to the driver, so The company was within the meaning of "service provider" and was not excluded from the definition of "services" as provided in Section 2 (q) (i) of the Sindh Consumer Protection Act, 2014.
The representative of Careem deposed that no complaint had been filed against the driver, however, after an internal investigation, he was warned to be careful in the future.
Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1506907/careem-fined-rs50000-over-faulty-service-mental-agony-to-customer-by-karachi-court