Bengaluru: Tour company successfully sued for couples’ honeymoon visa rejections

Bengaluru: A woman here successfully sued and received compensation from a tour company after its mistakes in visa application led to the cancellation of their honeymoon.

The woman and her husband had planned a 15-day honeymoon to the USA with a city-based prominent tour operator in May 2019. For this purpose, they had paid about 7.21 lakhs towards visa, travel, and accommodation expenses.

However, due to a mistake by the company’s employee their visa application was rejected by the US Consulate in Chennai.

The company sent the application again, with the same mistake, leading to a second rejection.

Vexed, the couple decided to cancel their tour plans with the company and demanded a return.

The company, claiming that the tour plan is being cancelled by them, returned about 4.31 lakhs after deducing ticket charges, GST and visa fee.

The woman then approached the local consumer court and argued herself stating that the wrongful and unconsented submission of the visa applications by the tour company led to the rejections hence entitling them to full repayment.

On March 21, 2021, the court stated that the mistakes made by the workers in the company led to the rejections of the visas and asked the company to refund the pending amount along with an interest, pay the woman’s litigation expenses and compensate an additional Rs 25,000 towards damages.