Assalamu Alaykum I live in india. I purchased a tablet and its faulty, i gave it back to the company from where i purchased for repair. Now its almost 45 days i havent got my tablet, so i am filing a lawsuit against the company. The total cost of the tablet and courier charges are 5000 Indian rupees, so if i win this lawsuit so is it legal for me to also take the compensation charges, although i have not suffered any losses except 5000 rupees. whats the islamic ruling on this? Jazak Allah Khair.

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His Slave and Messenger.

If there was a defect in the commodity before concluding the contract and it appeared after trying and using it, then the seller has to guarantee it. The purchaser will have two options; either to return it because it is faulty and take back the price he paid for it, or to keep the defective commodity without taking an 'Arah (a monetary compensation).

Some scholars are of the view that the purchaser can keep the faulty commodity along with taking an 'Arsh (the way to estimate the 'Arsh of the old fault of the commodity is to see how much its value is at the time of concluding the contact while it is sound and then faulty, and then return of its price the value of the fault. For example, if it was said that its price is 80, the value of the sound commodity is 100 and the value of the faulty one is 70, then the 'Arsh will be (30÷100) × 80 = 24).

If the vendor refuses to give you your right in canceling the contract or taking an 'Arsh and you take the matter to court and spend money on that, then the preponderant opinion is that you are allowed to take the amount of money that the lawsuit has cost you.

Allaah Knows best.