Pepsi Ordered to Pay for Adultered Cola
22 November 2012
A state consumer commission in India has upheld the order of an Indian court, which ordered Pepsi to compensate a man who allegedly suffered health problems after drinking adulterated cola in 2003, even though the bottle may not have been the company’s product, according to media reports from the BBC and the Times of India.
In 2006, the north district consumer court ordered Pepsi to pay Sudesh Sharma Rs23,000 rupees (US$450) after he says he suffered headaches and sleeplessness after drinking the product, which Pepsi says may not be their own. Sharma alleges to have found dirt in the bottle which made him ill and a condom in another bottle. The award covers Rs20,000 in compensation and Rs3,000 for litigation costs.
According to the Times of India, Pepsi appealed to the state consumer commission following the 2006 decision, denying any negligence on its part. The newspaper reported the company’s lawyer as denying that any foreign substance could have entered the bottle. “The manufacturing process involves strict quality checks at various stages where the water used is filtered, sterilised and is absolutely clean. We have discovered a number of unscrupulous elements in the market that are illegally using our brand name to pass off their product,” the newspaper reported the lawyer as saying.
The court decision said that “if the end-product is found to contain any foreign substance or such material that renders the drink unfit for human consumption, the inference of the goods being defective necessarily has to be drawn against the manufacturer whose name is printed on the packaged product.”
