People assume this is a dispute about a warranty. It is usually not. The appliance may be perfectly sound. The damage came from the work done to fit it, and the 2019 Act has a whole chapter aimed at exactly that situation.
Note also that Section 2(37) defines a product seller to include a person who, in the course of business, imports, sells, distributes, leases, installs, prepares, packages, labels, markets, repairs or maintains a product. Installation is named in the definition. The person who fitted your appliance is inside the Act whichever way you approach him.
Three fact patterns, and they are not the same
Who arranged the installer?
Where the brand or its authorised service partner arranged the installation, examine the booking, invoice and representations to identify each party's responsibility. A contractor label does not decide the issue by itself, but neither does it make the brand automatically liable. Plead the actual undertaking or relationship that connects the brand to the failed work.
Where the brand or retailer recommended an installer whom you paid directly, preserve the recommendation and the terms. A referral is relevant evidence, but it does not by itself prove that the brand guaranteed or supplied the installation. Explain the particular promise or role on which liability is based.
You hired an independent electrician or plumber yourself: the installer is the opposite party. He is a service provider under Section 2(42) and his work is deficient under Section 2(11). The brand is out of it unless the appliance itself was also defective, in which case both go in on different grounds.
Why the product liability chapter is the stronger route
Chapter VI of the Act deals with product liability. Section 82 applies the chapter to every claim for compensation for harm caused by a defective product manufactured by a product manufacturer, serviced by a product service provider, or sold by a product seller. Section 83 allows the action to be brought against any of them. The word harm has a defined limit: Section 2(22) excludes damage to the product itself alone and specified commercial or economic loss. An ordinary deficiency complaint gets you the service put right and something for the trouble. A product liability action is framed around what the failure actually did: the water that came through the ceiling, the wall that had to be reopened, the wiring that burnt, the injury.
Read Section 87(1) before you file, because it tells you what the other side will say. A product liability action cannot be brought against a product seller if, at the time of the harm, the product was misused, altered or modified. The brand will plead that somebody else opened the unit, that the wiring was tampered with, or that you had it serviced elsewhere. Anticipate it. Keep the installation record, keep the appliance untouched until it has been inspected, and do not let a second technician work on it before you have photographs and a report.
What to preserve, and preserve it immediately
- The installation job card or work order with the technician's name, the date and the serial number of the unit
- The receipt for the installation charge, showing whether the brand or the individual took the money
- Photographs and a short video of the damage, taken before anything is cleaned, repaired or removed
- The appliance still in place, unaltered, until it has been looked at, because moving it hands the other side Section 87(1)
- An independent assessment from a qualified technician or a licensed contractor, in writing, with a repair estimate
- Quotations and bills for the consequential repair work, itemised rather than lump sum
- Your complaint to the brand's customer care with the ticket number, and what it said in reply
The single thing that decides these matters is whether an independent person looked at the damage before it was fixed. It is entirely natural to get a burst pipe or a soaked ceiling repaired the same week, and it is also the reason many of these complaints end up being argued about a photograph nobody can date. If you can, get an assessment in writing first, even a one page one, and only then have the repair done. On the money, Section 39(1) covers removing the deficiency, refunding charges paid with interest, compensation for loss or injury due to negligence with the punitive damages proviso, and adequate costs, so the claim should be built head by head with a receipt against each. If the appliance itself is also failing, the related question of what happens when a defect appears after the warranty ends is dealt with in the answer on out of warranty defects.