Sify Broadband to Pay for Unfair Trade Practises

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 hidden conditions that after downloading of 750 MB data in a month the speed would be reduced to 14 Kbps and also a new condition that if a customer downloaded more than 150 MB data in a day, then he was penalized in the form of reduction of package validity by one day, but still packages were advertised as unlimited.

It has been regarded as a landmark judgment as for the first time technical deficiency has been proved in the court of law in India against an Internet Company. And further Court interpreted the matter from the point of view of definition of Broadband as laid down by TRAI, 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!