The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission of Chandigarh has asked the manager of the local branch of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) located in Sector 35 of the city to pay Rs 12,000 to an aggrieved vegetarian customer for delivering her a non-veg burger instead of a veg burger.
Notably, Anirudh Gupta, a resident of Chandigarh, stated that he and his wife are regular customers of KFC. His wife hails from a Brahmin family and is a devout vegetarian. In his complaint, Gupta recalled that on 3rd May 2023, he ordered a chicken bucket for himself and one classic vegetarian crisper for his wife. He placed the order through the online app of KFC and paid Rs 696.59 via UPI.
Gupta added, “When my wife took the first bite of the burger delivered to us, she experienced something unfamiliar. She immediately called me and showed me the burger. I was shocked to find that the burger had chicken. Since my wife is a pure vegetarian, she immediately started vomiting.”
The complainant further submitted that because of this act of the KFC manager, his wife was under immense mental stress.
However, in defense, the KFC manager went on blaming the customers and accused them of filing the false case to extort money from them and defame the brand.
The KFC manager alleged, “The complaint has been filed on false and frivolous grounds with malafide intention and ulterior motive to extort money from KFC and defame the brand. The complainant concealed that the order placed was a takeaway order which was collected by the person after checking the same on the premises.”
KFC also argued that every customer gets a message on their mobile number used for placing the order. In this message, they get the description of their order. They also claimed that all orders have red and green markers displayed on the package to inform customers whether the order has any product of animal origin, meat, or eggs etc.
However, based on the receipts of the order, the Commission rejected the defense submitted by KFC. It held that “it (the order) clearly indicates that the KFC outlet, instead of delivering a veg krisper burger as mentioned in the receipts, delivered a non-veg krisper burger stuffed with chicken which is fairly apparent from the pictures of the burger and same amounts to clear cut deficiency in service and negligence on the part of the KFC manager, especially when the manager has miserably failed to rebut the evidence led by complainant by way of any cogent documentary evidence”.
The Commission further observed that one thing is clear that the KFC manager was negligent while rendering service to the complainant. It wrongly delivered a non-veg food item to the wife of the complainant who is a pure vegetarian, thereby hurting her sentiments which caused a lot of mental agony and stress to her.
Consequently, the Commission directed the KFC manager to pay Rs 7,000 to the complainants as compensation for causing mental agony and harassment to him and his wife. It has also been asked to pay Rs 5,000 towards costs of litigation.
It is pertinent to note that this was not a one-off incident when a fast food joint or an eatery had been penalised for hurting the sentiments of vegetarian customers in the recent past.
A few weeks earlier, the Ludhiana district consumer disputes redressal forum penalised food delivery app, Swiggy, and an eatery named Behrouz Biryani, for mixing up orders and delivering a non-vegetarian dish to a woman who ordered a vegetarian dish. The commission directed Behrouz Biryani, and Swiggy, to pay Rs 50,000 to the complainant, Vasu Gupta.
A similar incident was reported yesterday in the Indian Railways where a vegetarian passenger was served Non-veg food in a thali that had the sticker of a Veg special thali. Consequently, the accused eatery, Sagar Barbeque, owned by Faiz, was ‘deactivated’ from the list of vendors serving food on Indian Railways.
Numerous incidents of mental agony and hurting sentiments of vegetarian customers widely reported in media
Earlier, several shocking cases emerged from eateries in several parts of the country.
Earlier this week, on 4th August 2024, chaos broke out after non-vegetarian biryani was served to pilgrims who were returning to Delhi from Haridwar via Kandhla after taking Gangajal. The accused hawker named Tanveer was apprehended by authorities, and he was subsequently brought to the police station.
In April, this year, Gujarat Police raided a Vadodara-based samosa shop, ‘Huseni Samosa center’, and arrested six persons, including eatery owners Yusuf and Naeem Sheikh for selling samosas stuffed with beef. A similar case was reported in Pune, Maharashtra, where condoms, stones and tobacco were found stuffed inside samosas in the canteen of Tata Motors. The police have registered an FIR against 5 people in this case. It was revealed that the accused – Rahim Shaikh, Azhar Shaikh, Mazar Shaikh, Azar Shaikh and Vicky Shaikh – committed the crime in anger after the company cancelled their contract.
In January 2024, a vegetarian passenger hailing from the Jain community, was served chicken pieces in her veg meal on an Air India flight. Enraged, she complained about the same to the cabin crew but no action was taken on the matter. Finally the passenger, Veera Jain, shared the incident on social media. Air India responded to her post on X, and requested her to delete the tweet.
In July 2022, an incident surfaced at the Jamia Millia Islamia University of Delhi, in which a vegetarian student was allegedly served a non-vegetarian sandwich in the varsity’s central canteen. Upon complaining to the canteen staff, the student was shoved aside and told that there is no pure vegetarian food available in the canteen.
Incidentally, in March 2024, food delivery aggregator Zomato gave up with the idea of starting a new service ‘Pure Veg Mode’ to serve its pure veg customers to mitigate the growing complaint and criticism from ‘pure veg’ users who had at times found non-veg items in their food order.
