The Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission has recently directed Pace IIT & Medical, a reputed coaching institute, to refund part of the fees to a parent whose son’s studies were hampered due to online classes. The student, who had scored 94% in Std X, had stopped even touching his books due to fatigue of online classes. Despite discussions with the institute, his parents didn’t get any solution to the problem and had demanded a refund of some of the fees, which was refused. The Commission has also directed the institute to pay Rs 5,000 to the parents as cost for litigation.

The 47-year-old father, a Central government official, had admitted his son in Pace IIT & Medical in December 2019 for the academic session of 2020-2022 by paying the full fees, Rs 4,24,800. The physical classes were to start in March-April 2020. The boy was preparing for the engineering entrance exam.