A Hindu couple in South Africa who were refused a franchise from a national pizza company because they were not Muslim has won substantial damages after taking the company to court.
Anak and Kaskumarie Neerputh brought the action against franchisor Romans Pizza in the Tshwane Equality Court, where Magistrate R Francis yesterday ordered the company to pay them 200,000 rands and publish an apology in newspapers around the area where the couple lived for "offending their dignity".
The Neerpuths had applied for a franchise of Romans Pizza in a new shopping complex being built in the sprawling Indian suburb of Chatsworth, south of Durban, in 2012.
After initially being accepted, they were told that they could not get the contract because only Muslims qualified for a Halaal store franchise, despite the couple planning to have the store certified with South Africa's Halaal certification bodies.
The store was subsequent allocated to a Muslim applicant.
Although Romans Pizza argued that the company had not discriminated against the Neerpuths because of their Hindu faith, the couple said that when they tried to pay the required 700,000 rands deposit for the franchise, they were told that the company's policy was to allocate Halaal outlets only to Muslim owners.
The company also submitted as mitigation the fact that a franchise in Phoenix, another big Indian township north of Durban, had failed because Muslim consumers did not trust branches owned by non-Muslims to adhere to their Halaal requirements.
"(The Neerpuths) were being excluded from a business opportunity because of their faith. This has no place in a democratic society," Francis said in her judgment.
Ordering the company to desist from similar discrimination in its future dealings, Francis said that the company could not use such business practices to contravene the right to freedom of religion entrenched in the South African Constitution.
The court also noted that the owners of the master company were not Muslim, but were responsible for supplying Halaal ingredients to their franchisees.
All South African fast food franchisors have a mix of non-Halaal and Halaal stores, the latter certified and monitored by several Halaal certifying bodies across the country.
