Dept of Consumer Affairs cautions restaurants against forcefully levying service charges

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The Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA) on May 23 cautioned restaurants against levying service charges forcefully on consumers, CNBC-TV18 reported. Restaurants and eateries have been reminded that it is the discretion of the consumers to pay or not pay the service charges as they are completely voluntary.

The DoCA added that it has been pointed out that restaurants and eateries are still collecting service charges from consumers by default, despite such collection being voluntary and at the discretion of the consumers and definitely not mandatory by law.

To discuss these issues at length the National Restaurant Association (NRA) has been directed to meet on June 2. Various issues pertaining to complaints raised by consumers would be discussed at the meeting, including, restaurants making service charges compulsory; restaurants adding a service charge to the bill in the guise of some other fee or charge; restaurants not declaring to consumers that paying service charges is optional and voluntary; restaurants embarrassing consumers who refuse to pay service charges.

The Consumer Affairs Ministry had in April 2017 issued specific guidelines outlining that the “service charge” section in the bill should be left blank and whether a customer wants to pay the amount or not should be left to them.

Service charge on hotel and restaurant bills is "totally voluntary" and not mandatory, Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan had said while announcing that the Centre approved the guidelines on service charge.

"The government has approved guidelines on service charges. As per the guidelines, service charge is totally voluntary and not mandatory now," Paswan had tweeted, adding “hotels/restaurants should not decide how much service charge is to be paid by the customer and it should be left to the discretion of customer”.