Dry cleaners are protected by the fine print on the back of every receipt they hand out. The receipt is usually handed back to him when the clothes are returned. What happens, however, if you later find that the clothes have been damaged or if their colours have faded?

You could rush to the consumer court and file a complaint against the drycleaner but your case is likely to be rejected at the very threshold because you have not attached any document with your complaint.

This is a mandatory requirement to mobilise the machinery of a consumer court.

Even if you succeed in establishing the fact that you gave the drycleaner your clothes, you are invariably confronted with the terms and conditions printed on the reverse of the receipt, limiting the drycleaners' liability to a meaningless extent.

You have agreed thereto, the courts tell you. Quite a large number of cases have been decided by the courts on that ground.

D C Verma had given his two coats for drycleaning to Prince Drycleaners, Delhi, on March 29, 2000. Both should have been ready on April 2. Verma, for some reason, did not collect his garments for nearly seven months.

On September 25 Verma went to the drycleaner to collect the coats. He was informed that due to a fire in the drycleaners' shop on September 13 the clothes had been burnt and therefore could not be given to him.

Verma demanded that the drycleaner should pay for the cost of the two coats as the loss was due to their negligence.

As the repeated demands made by him did not yield any result, Verma filed a complaint before the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Nand Nagri, Delhi, claiming Rs 4,400 as the cost of the two coats together with Rs 5,000 as compensation for mental agony and another sum of Rs 1,000 as cost of litigation.

The district forum by its order dated March 23, 2002 dismissed the complaint.

An appeal was filed before the Delhi State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission against the district forum's order. The commission, by its order dated January 27, 2003 reported at 2003 CTJ 838 (CP), has upheld the customer's claim against the drycleaner.

After going deep into the matter and perusing the terms and conditions the state commission has held that under the said terms and conditions the drycleaner was not liable for loss or damage if the delivery was not taken after 15 days of the date of delivery or the goods were not claimed within six months from the date of receipt.

The state commission further noted that the said terms also provided that in the latter event the drycleaner had a right to sell the clothes.

But in the present case the clothes were neither lost nor damaged. They were destroyed due to a short circuit which caused a fire in the shop. For that reason, it amounted to negligence of the drycleaner.

The above recent judgment could benefit many people who give their clothes to drycleaners. However, here is some advice for such consumers:

• Insist on the receipt from the drycleaner while handing over garments for drycleaning;
• In case you are to sign the receipt, read the liability clause overleaf and have it suitably modified;
• Preserve the receipt and while taking delivery of the garments do not return the same to the drycleaner. Instead, the drycleaner could get the signature of the customer on the counterfoil as proof of having taken the delivery of the garments;
• The garments should be collected on the due date or within a reasonable time thereafter;
• As far as possible, the clothes should be inspected in the presence of the drycleaner while taking delivery and any damage, if noticed, must be reported without any loss of time.

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