The objective of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 was to provide consumers with speedy and inexpensive justice. The hearings were to be informal and judgments were to be given within 90 days of filing the complaint.
But the judges appointed to the consumer courts are judges who retire from regular courts. Slowly, procedures (such as too much formalism, adjournments, etc.) which cause huge delays in regular courts are making their way into consumer courts and causing similar delays in delivery of justice. Some cases in consumer courts have taken as long as 9 years to be concluded.
Now another major problem is afflicting the consumer justice system, especially in Karnataka, namely, not filling the vacancies in consumer courts. As is well-known, district consumer fora have three members (president, member and a lady member). We filed an RTI application with the Karnataka State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission about the vacancies in the positions in various district fora in Karnataka and the reply we have received is shocking. Of the 31 District Consumer Fora in the state, 22 did not have a president as on 01-01-15. In 18 fora, the position of the member was vacant and in 17 fora, the position of the lady member was vacant. Some of these vacancies have existed from as early as 2011. In 8 district fora (Bagalkot, Bengaluru 2nd Additional, Bidar, Chamarajanagar, Davanagere, Gadag, Kolar and Yadagiri), all three positions are vacant and in 12 fora (including Mysore), two positions are vacant.
With such large scale vacancies in consumer fora, it is no wonder that delivery of justice in consumer courts in Karnataka has slowed down to a crawl. If the government does not wake up soon, consumer justice might die altogether.
G L Nagaraj Urs, MGP