New Delhi, April 8: The bottle of Coke cost Rs 8. Now Coca-Cola has to pay Rs 25,000 for serving up something extra with the drink — phlegm.

A consumer court in Delhi has asked the cola major to pay the compensation to a woman for the “mental agony” she suffered seeing the unwanted substance floating inside the bottle she had bought three years ago.

The judgment comes just two months after the same court, the New Delhi Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, had ordered the manufacture- rs of the soft drink Maaza, a Coca-Cola product, to pay Rs 1 lakh as compensation to a man who found two dead flies in a bottle he had bought.

In her complaint, Sheela said she bought the bottle of Coca-Cola from a general store in August 2007 and saw the phlegm just as she was about to take a sip.

“When I tried to open the bottle for consumption, I noticed there was phlegm in it. If I had consumed the contents of the bottle I would have suffered from a major disease or irreparable loss,” she told the consumer court.

But when she went back to the general store and complained, “they misbehaved” with her. “They told me they get their bottles from another agency which is the authorised unit of Coca-Cola India. No one listened to me, so I went ahead and complained in the consumer court. These big companies need to be made to pay for the harassment they cause to the public by their negligence,” she said, adding that she would now think twice before buying a bottle of Coke.

As evidence, Sheela submitted the bottle with the phlegm inside and also the bill of Rs 8 she had been given when she bought the bottle.

In its order, the commission said the evidence was enough to demand compensation and set aside the plea of the manufacturers that the product was spurious.

“The phlegm inside the bottle is visible to the naked eye. Obviously, consumption of the contents of such a bottle by a human being could have proved injurious to one’s health,” the court ruled.

It said that though the manufacturers claimed the entire process of production was “automatic and computerised” and went through “several checks and control”, the “cork of the bottle in no way seems to have been tampered with”.

“(The) Complainant with her complaint has filed a photograph of the bottle purchased by her together with a copy of the bill and has even submitted the bottle in question,” the court added.

“On the basis of the material available on record, we are satisfied that the bottle manufactured by Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd that Sheela purchased contained phlegm and therefore a case of sale of defective goods to the complainant is clearly made out. Keeping in view the facts and circumstances of this case, we direct the company to pay to the complainant a consolidated amount of Rs 25,000 towards compensation and cost for the sale of defective goods to her which resulted in mental agony to the complainant,” the court said.

This isn’t the first time that this Coca-Cola subsidiary has been in the news for negligence. In October 2009, the Delhi consumer forum had asked the company to pay Rs 50,000 to Raj Mohan Atrey, a doctor, who had to be hospitalised with acute gastroenteritis after drinking from a bottle of soft drink in April 2008.

The forum took strong exception to the company’s plea that fungus was quite common in such bottles.

The court also asked the company to deposit Rs 1 lakh in its relief fund.