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Chandigarh: Files pile up as consumer forums reel under staff crunch
Advocate Nitin Thatai, former secretary of the Tricity Consumer Courts Bar Association, said: “District commission takes three to four years to decide one case and the period is even longer in the state commission Haryana. One of my cases is as old as 2016 and I am still awaiting its judgment.”
Reeling under a shortage of panel members, the pendency of cases is piling up at consumer commissions of tricity, impacting the consumers’ rights as they have to wait longer for justice.
As per the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, a case has to be decided within 90 days, whereas, in tricity, cases take a minimum of three to four years to settle.
Advocate Nitin Thatai, former secretary of the Tricity Consumer Courts Bar Association, said: “District commission takes three to four years to decide one case and the period is even longer in the state commission Haryana. One of my cases is as old as 2016 and I am still awaiting its judgment.”
Another advocate Anirudh Gupta said one of his 2019 cases was decided this year. “Litigants have to suffer a lot. Contrary to the act, there is unnecessary delay in judgments. The process is lengthy and takes at least three years.”
Talking about the pending cases, the president of the Tricity Consumer Courts Bar Association, IP Singh, said: “Currently, 1,800 cases are pending with the district commission of Mohali, nearly 2,000 cases are pending before DC-I and 1,400 before DC-II of Chandigarh. The pendency is too high, as the numbers should not be more than 500 per bench.”
He said the rate of disposal is slower than the rate of filing cases. The new provision allows cases wherein an amount up to ₹50 lakh is involved and can be dealt with district commissions, whereas earlier it was only ₹20 lakh. So, this has increased the burden on existing benches.
Another reason shared by advocate Nitin is: “There has been a change in the act, as per which the area of jurisdiction of district commissions has been increased.”
“Now, any person living in the jurisdiction of the commission can file a complaint, irrespective of the fact if you have bought the product from the same city or somewhere else. Earlier, it was not like that,” he added.
While the volume of work has increased, the strength remains the same. Even the vacancies are not filled up.
Talking about the shortage of staff, advocate Nitin Thatai said: “As per the new act, there is a provision of five members per bench, which includes one president and four members. Whereas the number is hardly two per bench in tricity consumer commissions.”
He shared that there is one bench of the district commission in Panchkula, which has three members, including the president, and then the state commission has made multiple benches with single members.
“In Mohali, one bench of the district commission has two members and there are two benches of state commission with two members each. In the Chandigarh Consumer Commission, there are two benches of the district commission with three members in one bench and two members in another. Chandigarh’s two state commission benches have two members, including the president,” Thatai said.
Thatai, IP Singh and others had moved a writ petition in the Punjab and Haryana high court, seeking an extension of members as vacancies were not being filled by the state administrations. They had requested that if a stopgap arrangement was not made then work would come to a standstill.
“One writ petition was filed for the consumer courts of tricity and subsequently two applications were filed. As a result, the high court ordered an extension of tenure to five members of the consumer commission,”members of the association said.
“Similarly, an extension has been granted to the president of the Haryana State Consumer Commission whose tenure was to expire on December 31 till regular appointments are made by the government in another writ petition filed by the association’s president,” the members added.
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