A practising advocate from Ananthapuramu has won a consumer case against Ola Electric after the company failed to fix a trunk lock defect on his Ola S1 Pro scooter for over two years, despite repeated visits to the service centre, multiple emails and a formal legal notice.
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Ananthapuramu, has directed Ola Electric Mobility Private Limited and its local service centre to repair the trunk free of cost and pay the complainant Rs 45,000 in compensation and litigation costs. The order was pronounced on 9 June 2026.
What happened
M. Murali Mohan purchased an Ola S1 Pro electric scooter on 29 October 2022. The vehicle was delivered on 7 November 2022 and came with a warranty of 36 months from the date of purchase or 40,000 kilometres, whichever came first.
Within the warranty period, Mohan noticed that the trunk lock had stopped functioning properly, making it impossible to open or securely close the storage compartment.
He first contacted the Ola service centre in Ananthapuramu, where a technician acknowledged the problem and suggested the issue could be resolved by rebooting the vehicle. It was not.
On 29 September 2025, Mohan visited the Ola showroom on Kalyandurgam Road in person. The technician there confirmed there was a lock defect but said the required spare parts were out of stock and promised to fix it once they arrived. No update came.
More than just a broken lock
For Mohan, this was not a minor inconvenience. As a practising advocate, he uses the scooter to transport case files to court. With the trunk non-functional for over two months, he could not carry his file bundles securely, leading to delays in his court work and causing difficulty for his clients.
The Commission specifically noted this dimension in its order, observing that case files cannot be carried safely without a working trunk and that the risk of losing files created a real professional hazard for the complainant.
Mohan's repeated attempts to get it fixed
On 5 October 2025, Mohan visited the showroom again. Getting no satisfactory response there, he sent a complaint email to Ola Electric's service email at 1:38 PM the same day. The email was acknowledged within a minute, at 1:39 PM, with reference number 10404596.
Further emails from Ola Electric followed on 9 October and 12 October 2025, acknowledging the problem. Despite all of this, no repair was carried out.
Mohan then issued a formal legal notice to both Ola Electric and the service centre on 15 October 2025. Postal records confirmed the notice was received. Even then, nothing happened.
He filed his complaint before the Commission in November 2025, appearing as party in person.
How Ola responded
After the Commission issued notice, Ola Electric engaged a lawyer. However, neither the company nor its counsel appeared at subsequent hearings, and no written statement was filed within the statutory 45-day period. As a result, Ola Electric's right to contest the complaint was forfeited and the case proceeded based solely on the complainant's evidence and documents.
Mohan filed his affidavit and placed 12 documents on record. Ola Electric had nothing to counter with.
What the Commission found
The bench, comprising President Smt. M. Sreelatha and Member Sri B. Gopinath, held that Mohan had clearly established his case. The Commission noted that Ola Electric's own technicians had acknowledged the defect and its own emails had promised rectification — neither of which was followed through.
It also noted that only Ola's trained technicians and spare parts could repair the vehicle, making the company the only entity capable of fixing the problem. Its failure to do so, the Commission found, was a clear deficiency in service.
On compensation, Mohan had originally claimed Rs 2,00,000 across multiple heads. The Commission trimmed this, holding that some of the claimed heads overlapped and that the mental agony claim of Rs 80,000 was not fully substantiated. It awarded Rs 20,000 towards deficiency in service, Rs 20,000 towards mental agony, and Rs 5,000 towards litigation costs — a total of Rs 45,000.
What Ola Electric must now do
The Commission has directed both Ola Electric Mobility Private Limited and its Ananthapuramu service centre, jointly and severally, to repair the trunk free of cost within 45 days of the order.
If they fail to do so within that window, they will be required to replace the trunk with a new one and pay all compensation amounts with interest at 7 per cent per annum from the date of the judgment until the amount is fully paid.
Check the complete judgement here:
