Bata India Limited, a shoemaker company, has been fined with Rs. 9000 for making its customer pay Rs. 3 for a paper bag.

This is the first time that the company has been penalized.

According to a report, a customer from Chandigarh filed the complaint at a consumer forum after he was asked by the company to pay Rs. 3 for a paper bag.

After conducting a probe for the said incident, the regulator slammed Bata India Limited as they were found guilty.

Dinesh Prasad Raturi, a resident of Chandigarh, told the consumer forum that he bought a pair of shoes from a Bata store in Sector 22D on February 5, the store asked him to pay Rs. 3 for the paper bag, the bill of his purchase was Rs. 402, which includes the bag fee.

The Consumer Forum said that if companies are really worried about the environment, they should be able to provide environment-friendly bags to their respective customers.

The Consumer Forum has directed Bata India Limited to provide free paper bags to their customers.

Bata India Limited denied the allegations that were made against them. But, the Consumer Forum said that asking a customer to pay for a paper bag is a clear deficiency in their service as it was their duty to provide a free bag to the said customer who purchased a product from their store.

The forum directed Bata to refund the Rs. 3 that was asked for the bag and also charged them Rs. 1000.

They also had to pay Rs. 3000 as a compensation to the customer for the mental agony that was caused by the Deficiency in their services, the Consumer Forum has also directed the company to deposit Rs. 5000 in the legal aid account of the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission.

The actions taken against Bata after they charged extra for paper bags were done to make other brands jittery.