KARACHI: A consumer court on Monday imposed a collective fine of Rs50,000 on a private ride-hailing company for providing faulty service and causing agony to a consumer.

Junaid Iqbal, the chief executive officer of Careem Pakistan, was found guilty of providing faulty services in contravention of Section 13 of the Sindh Consumer Protection Act, 2014.

Judge Javed Ali Korejo ordered the defendant to deposit Rs25,000 fine amount with the court’s Nazir (official).

The defendant was further ordered to pay Rs15,000 to the complainant as damages for causing agony to him and Rs10,000 as a professional fee incurred on the litigation.

The court told the defendant to pay the amount within a month. Advocate Mehmood Ahmed Khan had filed a complaint with the court mentioning that he booked a ride with Careem from Gulistan-i-Jauhar to Saadi Garden on May 26.

The complainant said he with some female guests and children were picked up by a driver, Mohsin Ahmed Lodhi, of the company. Mr Khan said he asked the driver to follow his friends, who were on a motorcycle, but the former did not listen to him and drove in a reckless manner, putting lives of the passengers in danger.

The complainant said the driver became annoyed upon being asked repeatedly to follow the bike-rider. He dropped the passengers, who were all fasting during Ramazan, in the middle of the road halfway. The driver also used insulting language, he added.

Advocate Khan alleged that he lodged an online complaint with the company, but received no satisfactory response from the management, adding that they even did not reply to the legal notice served by him on them.

Advocate Altamash Faisal Arab for the defendant argued that his client was not responsible for any act or omission on the part of the driver, better known as captain, since they were independent third-party service providers that operated via Careem platform to all customers.

He asked the court to dismiss the complaint.

However, the judge observed that the head of the defendant’s legal affairs, Aleena Zainab Alavi, admitted that 25 per cent of the fare of each ride came to the company, thus the company fell within the meaning of “service provider” and was not excluded from the definition of “services” as provided under Section 2(q)(i) of the Sindh Consumer Protection Act, 2014.

However, the representative deposed that there was no complaint against the driver, yet after internal investigation he had been warned to be careful in the future.

Witness testifies in Ranjhani murder case

An antiterrorism court (ATC) recorded on Monday the statement of a prosecution witness in a case pertaining to the killing of a political activist in a suspected robbery attempt.

Former union council chairman Abdul Raheem Shah and SI Riaz Hussain Aamir have been charged with injuring local Jeay Sindh Tehreek leader Irshad Ranjhani and allegedly not taking him to hospital that resulted in his death.

On Monday, when the matter came up before the ATC-XIII judge, the special public prosecutor produced the prosecution witness to record his testimony.

The witness, medico-legal officer Abdul Ghaffar, deposed that the police officials brought the victim to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre on Feb 6, but he had already died.

He said the victim had received bullet wounds, which resulted in his death as found in the post-mortem report, thus a report to this effect was prepared and handed over to the police.

Later, the defence counsel for the accused persons cross-examined the witness and completed the same.

After recording the witness’s testimony, the judge fixed the matter on Oct 7.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2019