Srinagar: A publishing company Pearson India Education Services Pvt. Ltd has been fined Rs 75000 by Legal Metrology Department (LMD) for selling books at inflated prices.
According to LMD handout, following the complaints of parents against the Green Valley Educational Institute, Ellahi-Bagh for prescribing the text-books of the publisher namely Pearson India Education Services Pvt. Ltd, with inflated prices, the joint inspection of the school was conducted by the officers of LMD, Education department and Revenue department to ascertain the genuineness of the complaint.
During the inspection, it was observed that the text-books for Class-I, Class-II and Class-III were in a packaged form carrying MRP of Rs 4500/-, Rs 5000/- & Rs 5000/- respectively. The one set of books (Class-III) was opened in presence of the book-seller and Executive Magistrate Class-I and it was found that none of the individual books in the pack carry the price. Even, the pack was without Urdu and computer books. Two sets of the books were seized from the book-seller and the case was registered against the publisher and book-seller for violation of provisions of Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rule,2011. The legal notice was served to the publisher company who in turn engaged the counsels to plead the case in the office of Deputy Controller LM (Consumer Protection) Kashmir.
After a threadbare discussion with the counsels of the publisher company, they confessed the lapse and gave an undertaking that they will follow the rules in letter and spirit. The case was compounded for Rs. 75,000.
