The Hindu : Govt. move on consumer courts opposed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 18, 2002

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National

Govt. move on consumer courts opposed

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI MARCH 17. The attempt by the Ministry of Food and Consumer Affairs to restrict appearance of lawyers in consumer courts and thus speed up disposal of cases was shot down by a lawyers' lobby minutes before the Consumer Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2001, was introduced in the Rajya Sabha last Wednesday.

After some hectic behind-the-scenes parleys, two amendments, which had been approved by the Union Cabinet, were suo motu withdrawn by the Food and Consumer Affairs Minister, Shanta Kumar.

The amendments moved by the Ministry will now have to be approved by the Cabinet before the Bill is introduced in the Lok Sabha. It has been passed by the Rajya Sabha.

The first amendment was to free the consumer courts from the stranglehold of lawyers. Studies have shown that the huge backlog of cases in consumer courts was mostly because of frequent adjournments sought by lawyers representing the opposite parties. There were 33,8869 cases pending on December 31, 2001.

The Ministry proposed to insert a new Section, 29B, which said that the opposite party before a consumer court, at any level, would not be entitled to be represented by a lawyer except when the consumer-complainant had (a) engaged a lawyer or (b) was himself a lawyer or (c) had no objection to the opposite party engaging a legal practitioner. This amendment has now been withdrawn.

The other amendment pertained to Section 3 which sought to keep out of consumer courts all claims except the ones for which similar remedies were available under special laws (such as tribunals in railways, sales tax etc.). This amendment was objected to by NGOs who said that while consumer courts had a reach till districts under the Consumer Protection Act, special courts or tribunals were mostly set up at State capitals which would be cumbersome for consumers to travel to. The amendments which were carried included provisions for empowering the courts to have powers of First Class Judicial Magistrate, recovery of compensation through certificate case as arrears of land revenue and issuance of interim orders for immediate relief.

The amendment provisions call for minimum qualification for members of the courts, disqualification and for reappointment of presidents and members of the fora. A new amendment says that ``ordinarily there should be no adjournments.''

However, it introduces a new element which may not go well with consumers and which had set consumer courts apart from civil courts: minimum deposit before appeal.

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