A month after a child’s parents filed a complaint with the 4th additional district consumer forum against a crèche in Bengaluru for physically assaulting their child, a city consumer court has asked the crèche to refund the admission fee, pay compensation and reimburse litigation costs.
The consumer forum asked the creche to refund the admission fee and pay Rs 35,750 as compensation and litigation costs of Rs 2,500 to the parents of the two-and-a-half-year-old boy for causing mental and physical agony within 30 days from the date of the order, said the TOI report.
Times of India reported that the couple, who were working in an IT company near Whitefield, had admitted their son to Your Kids “R”OUR KIDS (India) on Bannerghatta Road. The child was to stay there for eight hours, from 12.30pm to 7.30pm.
TOI reported that on the very first day the child’s mother was called by the crèche asking her to take her son home as he would not stop crying. The child’s father who picked up the child said that his son looked upset.
The consumer court order dated October 15, 2015, says that even on the next day, the parents stayed back at the day-care centre as the child started crying and refused to enter. On reaching home, the couple found marks on the child’s leg.
The parents sent an email to the crèche enquiring about their son’s injuries. They later registered a complaint of deficiency of service at Whitefield police station under section 23 of the Juvenile Justice Act (punishment for cruelty to a child).
According to the report, the couple received a call from the crèche saying they would return the admission fee of Rs 35,692 if they withdrew the complaint they had lodged. The couple then filed a complaint in the consumer court for deficiency of service on September 1, 2014.
The crèche, however, refuted the allegations of bad service and said that they had made no calls on the first day informing the couple that their child was crying. They also denied that the child was beaten by the staff. It in turn said that the couple were trying to sabotage the image of the centre.
This is an aggregated report from Times of India.