Man’s religious fast ruined after drinking fungus-contaminated juice; court orders Rs 70,000 compensation

NEW DELHI: A district consumer commission in Himachal Pradesh’s Kangra has held Dabur India liable for selling a contaminated pack of Real Fruit Power Mosambi juice to a man who discovered fungus inside it while having a religious fast, and ordered the company to pay a total of Rs 1,00,000 towards compensation, litigation costs and a consumer welfare fund, in its July 9 order.Fungus found in Real Fruit juice bottleAccording to the court order, Karanveer Singh Patiyal bought a 1-litre pack of Real Fruit Power Mosambi juice from a local shop on July 26, 2024. He was observing a religious fast during the Hindu month of Sawan and drank the juice to stay hydrated. He found the taste odd, and on checking the packet closely, discovered “a large quantity of black fungus inside.” Since he had consumed the contaminated juice while fasting, he said his fast stood broken, causing him deep emotional and spiritual distress on top of the risk to his health.He emailed Dabur the same day. The company offered to send replacement juice bottles, which Patiyal refused, calling the response inadequate. He then sent a legal notice seeking Rs 5 lakh in compensation, and when that went unanswered, he approached the consumer commission.However, Dabur denied any manufacturing defect, saying its preserved control sample from the same batch had passed all quality checks and that over a lakh units from that batch had drawn no other complaints. The shopkeeper who sold the juice argued that since the pack was sealed, any defect was Dabur’s responsibility, not his.Commission held Dabur liableThe bench of President Hemanshu Mishra and members Arti Sood and Narayan Thakur had the juice packet sealed before the commission and sent for testing to a government laboratory in Kandaghat. The lab’s report confirmed the presence of “suspended filthy lumps of mould-like growth” and concluded that the beverage “was entirely unsafe for human consumption.” The complainant also submitted a video showing the sealed packet being cut open to reveal the mould, which the commission accepted as unaltered evidence.“Defence cannot override the certified laboratory results of the actual package bought by the consumer. Control samples are kept in perfect, spotless laboratory conditions. The bottle sold to the consumer, on the other hand, points to a clear failure in the company’s preservation methods, sealing quality, or sterilization process during factory production,” the commission said.It held that finding fungal growth inside a sealed beverage meant for direct consumption pointed to a clear manufacturing defect and reflected sheer negligence, and that this responsibility is entirely on Dabur, since there was no evidence the retailer had tampered with the sealed pack.On the emotional and religious harm caused, the commission observed that the “shock of drinking mould, combined with the realization that his religious fast was broken by unclean fluids, caused him severe emotional, spiritual, and psychological pain, on top of the obvious risks to his physical health.” It added that such distress “cannot be fixed or dismissed by simply offering a few replacement bottles of juice.”The commission also held that the mould contradicted the “green dot” vegetarian marking on the packaging, amounting to a misleading representation and unfair trade practice under consumer law.Allowing the complaint against Dabur alone, and clearing the retailer of liability, the commission directed the company to pay Patiyal Rs 60,000 as compensation and Rs 10,000 towards litigation costs, along with an additional Rs 30,000 to the District Consumer Welfare Fund, Kangra. Dabur has 45 days to comply, failing which the Rs 60,000 compensation will carry 9 percent annual interest from the date the complaint was filed until it is paid.