Mumbai: A consumer court in Mumbai has fined a tutoring center 364,000 rupees for failing to provide promises to a twelfth grade student.
Oxford Tutors Academy at Lokhandwala Complex, Andheri, a suburb of the western Indian metropolis, offers in-home tutoring to students preparing for school final exams under various boards in the country.
Abhivyakti Verma, who was preparing for her HSC exams, had signed up for coaching in mathematics and chemistry in 2013. Oxford Tutors Academy, which claimed to have an experienced faculty, was supposed to send tutors to her home.
However, for a month it failed to provide a chemistry teacher. Besides, the mathematics tutor was from the Hindi medium and couldn’t teach the girl in English.
The student’s mother, Neena, an advocate, repeatedly asked the center for a chemistry tutor and it sent a teacher who taught in eighth grade under a different board, ndtv.com reported.
Neena again approached the center in November that year, which then sent a student of Indian Institute of Technology to help solve a question paper bank. However, even this student failed to help Abhivyakti out.
The girl, who had scored 83 percent in her secondary school exams, failed to get even 60 percent in Physics-Chemistry-Mathematics combine for merit-based admission into a Hyderabad-based college she had been eyeing. She was later given a seat in the college after talks with the management.
Abhivyakti told mid-day that she couldn’t complete her studies because of the inordinate delays caused by the tutoring center.
Her mother said the tutoring center had promised her lectures, revisions and paper solving, but kept none of those promises. “The teachers were incapable of teaching and because of having different tutors who had their own methods of teaching, my daughter was thoroughly confused and wasn’t prepared for the exams.”
Neena filed a case against the center in 2015 and represented herself in the court. The center did not reply to the court’s notice. While passing the judgment, the court said specialized coaching can help students perform better, but the tutoring center had failed to deliver its promises.
Diksha Verma, who argued for the coaching center, blamed the girl. “We have qualified teachers. The student was weak in studies. She joined the classes late and took tuitions from other centers as well, which is why she was confused.”
The lawyer also claimed his party had provided all services. “In fact, the deal was for 285 hours and we gave 350 hours of service. She is yet to pay us for the extra lectures. The teacher sent to her home used to complain regularly that the student was not doing her homework. There were other complaints as well.”
However, earlier in May, judges M Y Mankar and S R Sanap directed the center to refund 54,000 rupees they had collected as fees and pay the girl 300,000 rupees for causing her mental harassment. The judged also slapped 10,000 rupees as court expenses.