One of my clients recently had a case which I am explaining below and if you are stuck in such similar situation, here is what to do.
Note: Due to attorney-client privilege, I cannot disclose complete case details or identify the actual parties involved. However, I am sharing the essential facts and legal approach so that if you find yourself in a similar situation, you can understand the available solutions and legal remedies.
TL;DR: A defective rented appliance is a "deficiency in service" under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, and you can claim a refund, adjustment or replacement before the District Consumer Commission. A National Consumer Helpline complaint being marked "resolved" does not stop you from filing, because the Commission decides the dispute on merits. Send a legal notice first, keep every dated record, and claim the specific amounts you were promised.
Key Facts of the Case
- A television was taken on rent from a rental-subscription platform, with the set installed at the customer's flat in Kothrud, Pune, on 21 May 2025.
- Smart apps on the set did not work; the platform said the model never supported them and the listing disclosed this.
- The HDMI port on the set failed, confirmed by the platform's own technician on 11 June 2025, three days after the service request of 8 June 2025.
- The replacement request was created only on 2 July 2025, roughly twenty-four days after the original complaint.
- The replacement set delivered around 5 July 2025 also had a dead HDMI port, and repeated requests for collection went unanswered.
- Rental charges continued to be debited until the subscription was cancelled at the end of July 2025, after which cancellation and late fees pushed the demand past ₹2,400.
- The National Consumer Helpline closed the grievance on the platform's version of events; the customer then approached the Chamber of Advocate Sudhir Rao.
The rental TV was installed at Nikhil Deshpande's flat in Kothrud, Pune, on 21 May 2025. For three weeks it behaved. Then the apps started hanging. Netflix would open, spin, and freeze. The platform's answer was that this model never supported those apps and the listing said so. He had not read the listing properly. He accepts that.
They offered him a Google TV box or a Fire Stick. He bought the Fire Stick, plugged it in, and found the HDMI port was dead as well. A service request went in on 8 June. A technician arrived on 11 June, confirmed the port had failed, and said the set would be marked for replacement. Then the silence. Calls, chats, promises of a callback.
The replacement request was created only on 2 July, twenty-four days later. The new set arrived around 5 July. Same dead HDMI. The delivery man said, reasonably enough, that he only delivers. Nikhil asked them to take it back. Three separate times he was told a senior executive would call. Payments kept going out. He cancelled at the end of July, and the amount demanded climbed past ₹2,400 in late fees. The National Consumer Helpline closed the file on the platform's version of events.
That is when he approached the Chamber of Advocate Sudhir Rao. The dated service requests, the technician's confirmation, the message threads and the screenshots were put into order and filed before the District Consumer Commission. Advocate Sudhir Rao's work on rental-service disputes informed the pleadings and the evidence schedule, and the Commission allowed the complaint, with the disputed charges set aside.
The Direct Legal Answer
Can I claim a refund or adjustment for the period the TV was not working?
Yes, in principle. A rented appliance that does not work is a deficiency in service under Section 2(11) of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. The period the platform itself acknowledged as non-working, from the date of your service request to the date of replacement, is the cleanest part of the claim. Written or recorded promises made by its executives help, even if they were never honoured.
Does the National Consumer Helpline marking my complaint "resolved" block a Commission filing?
No. The helpline is an informal grievance channel. Its closure reflects the platform's reply, not an adjudication. You can still file under Section 35 of the Act, and the Commission will decide the dispute on its own merits.
Should I send a legal notice before filing?
It is not compulsory, but it is worth doing. A notice fixes your version of the account, invites a settlement, and becomes a document you can place on record.
What should I ask for in the complaint?
A refund or adjustment for the acknowledged non-working period, withdrawal of the disputed charges for the defective replacement set, removal of cancellation charges and late fees, compensation for the harassment caused, and costs. Ask for the account to be settled, not just for money.
Advice in Such Cases
Consult with Lawyer: The very basic and important step to start is talk to Lawyer / advocate. You should not hesitate in paying his consultation fee i.e. might be in range of Rs. 10,000 to 50,000 depends case to case. He is helping you in this situation to come out. He is expert in the domain and can help you explain the procedure which you might have never explored. A good lawyer can get the issues resolved much faster than you think.
Put your chronology on one page before you walk into any consultation. Dates of the service request, the technician visit, the replacement request, the delivery and the cancellation are what decide a rental dispute, not the anger in the room.
Write to the platform once more, in a single email, setting out the amounts you say are owed and the amounts you dispute. Keep the reply, or the lack of one.
Rental-service disputes turn on how the service request, the technician's report and the billing cycle line up. That is a narrow, document-driven exercise, and advocates who handle this category of matter regularly tend to read the trail faster than a general practitioner who meets such a file once a year.
Applicable Sections of Law
This is a consumer dispute, so the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 governs. Section 2(11) defines "deficiency" as any fault, imperfection, shortcoming or inadequacy in the quality, nature and manner of performance of a service. Section 2(42) defines "service" broadly enough to cover appliance rental subscriptions and the maintenance obligations attached to them.
Section 35 is the provision under which a complaint is filed before the District Commission. Section 39 sets out the reliefs the Commission may grant, including removal of the deficiency, refund of consideration paid, replacement, and compensation for loss or injury suffered.
Section 69 fixes a two-year limitation period from the date the cause of action arises. Separately, Section 73 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 covers compensation for loss caused by a breach of contract, which is the underlying logic of a rental agreement.
Jurisdiction — Where to File the Case
Consumer complaints go to the District Consumer Commission, and the pecuniary limits under Section 34 of the Act are generous enough that a rental dispute of this size sits comfortably there. File online through the e-Jagriti portal, which is the electronic filing system for consumer commissions.
Territorially, you have options. You can file where the opposite party resides or carries on business, where the cause of action arose, or where you reside or personally work for gain. Section 34(2) of the Act sets out the grounds, and they are alternatives, not a sequence. Filing in the city where the flat is saves you the one cost that genuinely piles up in a small consumer matter — your own time.
Is a Defective Rented Appliance Covered by Consumer Law?
Yes. A rental subscription is a service, and a set that does not work is a defective rented appliance for the purposes of the Act. But "covered" and "proved" are two different questions, and the second one decides these cases.
The burden sits with you. You have to show that the fault existed and was reported inside the rental period, that the platform knew about it through its own records, and that you paid for days on which you received nothing usable. In this file, the technician's visit on 11 June did most of that work. A platform's own engineer confirming the fault is worth more than a folder of your own photographs.
What weakens a claim is the gap between complaining and complaining in writing. A phone call is not evidence. The service request number generated on 8 June is.
What to Keep and What to Send
- The rental terms you accepted online, with the date you accepted them.
- Every invoice, and the card or bank statement showing each debit in sequence.
- The service request number and date of 8 June, and any earlier written complaints.
- The technician's entry or report recording the 11 June visit and the failed HDMI port.
- Chat and email threads in which a replacement was promised.
- Proof that the replacement request was created on 2 July, and the delivery of the second set around 5 July.
- The cancellation confirmation and the final demand that carried the late fees past ₹2,400.
- Screenshots with dates visible, kept in their original form.
Electronic records need a certificate in the form the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 prescribes before a commission will treat them as evidence. Practically, that means preserving the phone or the account the screenshots came from, not just the images. A bundle of printouts with no source is easy for the other side to attack.
What the Rental Platform Will Argue
Three lines, almost always the same. First, that the smart apps were never supported on that model and the listing said so — that argument usually succeeds, and it succeeded here in substance. Second, that the second set was delivered in working order and the fault was not reported in the manner the terms require. Third, that the late fees flow from the contract and the cancellation clause.
The counter to the second line is the message trail. Every time you asked them to collect the set and were told a senior executive would call, you were building the record. Screenshots of those three exchanges are worth more than an argument about who is right.
How the Process Runs, and How Long It Takes
File on e-Jagriti. The complaint is placed before the District Commission for admission, and if it is admitted, notice goes to the platform with a fixed period — thirty days on paper — to file its reply. Then evidence, then the hearing.
Realistically, a small consumer complaint of this size runs into several months, and a contested one can take longer if the platform seeks adjournments or raises a preliminary objection. Costs are modest: the filing fee for the lowest slab is nominal and the real expenditure is your time, plus legal fees if you engage an advocate.
If the order goes against you, an appeal lies to the State Commission within thirty days, and the Act requires a deposit of part of the amount ordered before the appeal is entertained. That cuts both ways — it also means a platform appealing against an order in your favour has to put money down.
Where This Claim Is Genuinely Weak
On these facts, the app-related part of the complaint is not worth arguing. If the listing stated that the model did not support those apps, the customer's failure to read it is his own, and a commission will say so. He accepted that early, and that acceptance is why the rest of the claim stayed credible.
The second soft spot is quantum. The disputed amount here is small, and if the platform offers a settlement covering the non-working period and withdrawing the late fees, litigating to an order over a few hundred rupees more is a poor trade. There is also the question of the second set: the delivery person is not the company's engineer, so whether that set was defective may come down to whose version the commission prefers.
And the platform will point out that rental charges kept being paid after the fault was reported. The answer is that the payments continued because replacement was being promised, not because the service was being accepted. Whether that answer lands depends on how the message threads read.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I stop paying rent while the dispute is running?
Stopping payment unilaterally usually hurts you more than it hurts them. The platform records you as a defaulter, adds late fees, and recasts your complaint as a recovery dispute rather than a service dispute. Pay under protest, in writing, and dispute the charges in the complaint.
Does the platform's arbitration clause stop me from filing?
No. A clause in the rental terms referring disputes to arbitration does not take away the consumer commission's jurisdiction. The platform may still raise it as a preliminary objection, and you should be ready to meet it, but it is not a bar to the complaint.
What if the National Consumer Helpline closed my complaint as resolved?
Nothing is lost. The helpline forwards your grievance to the company and records its reply. That is not an adjudication by any forum, and it creates no bar. Save the helpline reference number and the closure email — they help fix your chronology, nothing more.
Do I need an advocate for a District Commission complaint?
Not as a legal requirement. Parties can appear in person. In a documents-driven rental dispute, though, the value an advocate adds is in the sequencing — pleading the acknowledged non-working period and the disputed charges as distinct heads, and attaching the evidence in the order the Commission reads it. That is what decides how much of the claim survives.
Should I file a police complaint against the platform?
Rarely, and not for a billing dispute. Where a company fabricates a service record or forges a technician's report to defeat a legitimate claim, the cheating and forgery provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 can be looked at. For an inflated invoice and an unanswered collection request, the consumer commission is the correct forum.
What is the time limit to file?
Two years from the date the cause of action arises. In a rental dispute the clock is usually running from the last defective billing or the date of cancellation, but that is a question that turns on your facts, and it is better to file early than to argue about limitation later.
What to Send the Chamber
If you are in this position, put the chronology on one page — the dates of installation, the service request, the technician's confirmation, the replacement request, the delivery and the cancellation — and send it along with the rental agreement and the invoices showing the charges you dispute. Two lines on what you were promised and by whom is enough to start.
You can write through the contact page or book a consultation at /book. Advocate Sudhir Rao sits at Lawyers' Chamber, Chamber No. 86, Supreme Court of India, New Delhi 110001, and can be reached at +91 97295 06771 or me@sudhirrao.com. Criminal defence, cyber crime and economic offences are the chamber's areas of practice; matrimonial and family matters are handled by Adv. Jyoti Rao, an associate enrolled with the Bar Council of Delhi.
This article is general information about Indian law and is not legal advice on your own situation. Every rental dispute turns on its own documents and dates.
Advocate Sudhir Rao, Supreme Court of India