A 32-year-old consumer dispute from Maharashtra has been identified as the oldest case to be pending before a state consumer commission in a recent report submitted to the Supreme Court flagging serious concerns of vacancies and long pendency of cases in consumer forums across states and districts that need urgent resolution.
The report depicts a sorry state of functioning of the district and state consumer disputes redressal commission (SCDRC). Besides the Maharashtra matter, the report, prepared by a team of lawyers assisting the court as amicus curiae, also identified a 30-year old case from Kerala pending since December 1995 and a July 2000 matter in Uttar Pradesh that further goes to reveal the systemic problem of pendency across state commissions.
There are cases pending for almost two decades in other state consumer forums of J&K, West Bengal and Assam and beyond 15 years in Goa, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Rajasthan, the report states.
A separate report filed by the president of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) presents an equally alarming position. Three vacancies remain unfilled and two members continue on an extension with the President and eight members tackling the caseload that has now risen to 18,767 as on July 31.
The reports were presented to the court following an order passed in a suo motu proceeding where the court is considering reforms in functioning of consumer courts. In this connection, it directed a report on the performance of state and district consumer commissions to know the average rate of disposal and pending cases to suggest remedial measures.
{{/usCountry}}The reports were presented to the court following an order passed in a suo motu proceeding where the court is considering reforms in functioning of consumer courts. In this connection, it directed a report on the performance of state and district consumer commissions to know the average rate of disposal and pending cases to suggest remedial measures.
{{/usCountry}}A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant along with justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana on September 2 took up the report and directed the Centre to objectively consider the NCDRC President Justice AP Sahi’s report and take immediate remedial steps.
It further directed all states and union territories to respond to the amicus report prepared by senior advocates Gopal Sankaranarayanan, Aditya Narain and advocates Prema Priyadarshini and Shivani Vij and posted the matter for further hearing on October 1.
The information contained in the amicus report is based on responses received from 26 states, and focuses on pendency and vacancy position, the average time to decide cases, the time taken to upload orders, and other administrative concerns.
State Commissions
While the data covers only 26 states and UTs, the total case pendency as per the report crosses one hundred thousand (113,276 to be precise), with the highest pendency states being Maharashtra (34,203), Uttar Pradesh (15,657), Karnataka (9,244), Haryana (8,719) and Gujarat (6,414).
The report states that on an average, nearly 50% of the cases before the state commissions take more than a year to be decided. In these decided cases, a disturbing fact revealed by the report is that the litigants are yet to get copies of the decisions in 460 matters in Karnataka as they have not been uploaded for the past six months. Similarly, there are 800 orders across two benches in Maharashtra and 70 orders in West Bengal not uploaded for months together.
District Commissions
The report states that information about all districts is not yet available as only 598 out of 632 district consumer dispute redressal commissions (DCDRC) responded to the questionnaire supplied by the amicus.
Among the oldest cases, Uttar Pradesh seemed to have the worst track record with 13 cases of the period 1990-2000 and 40 cases of 2001-10 still pending. In BIhar, there is one case pending for nearly three decades followed by 11 cases pending since 2001. Kerala and Jharkhand are the two other states having one case each in the 30-year-old case bracket. Over a decade-and-a-half old cases exist in Maharashtra and West Bengal as well.
The report further highlights administrative issues as in several district consumer forums, cases which are failed are taken up for hearing after three weeks or more. This situation has been highlighted by the amicus and team in the states of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, J&K and Gujarat among others.
Also, the delay in uploading orders for over two weeks is witnessed mostly in the districts of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, J&K and Bihar.
Vacancy Position
Even the vacancy position is alarming across the states. In the three benches of Maharashtra SCDRC (Mumbai, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Nagpur), there is no President. In other states, the appointment of President is due since 2020 (Goa, Jharkhand) and between 2022 and 2024 (UT of J&K, Puducherry and Uttarakhand).
There are state commissions where the entire sanctioned post of members is vacant. For instance, the commissions of Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand have no members. This has a bearing on the pendency figures as well. Over the past three years (2023-2026), case pendency has nearly doubled in these states.
The situation is equally worse in Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka (87% vacancy), Bihar (75%) and 50% across seven state commissions including Delhi.
After going through the report, the top court said, “This gives broadly the picture that exists on the ground across districts,” directing states to respond within three weeks.
By an order passed last month, the top court had called for the data of cases disposed and pending over the past three years from the NCDRC, SCDRCs and DCDRCs to know how the consumer forums performed.
Quite recently as on July 29, the Centre told the Parliament that 593,109 consumer cases are pending across the country, with a lion’s share of 448,687 before the district commissions and 127,507 cases in SCDRCs.
On the vacancy front too, the Centre’s response said that 18 out of 36 President posts and 74 member posts are vacant in state commissions. At the district level, 234 out of 637 president posts and 538 out of 1,416 member posts remain vacant.
Under the legislative scheme provided by the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, the responsibility to fill vacancies in state and district consumer forums belongs to the state. They are required to initiate the appointment process six months prior to the post falling vacant. Clearly, this will need an explanation when the matter comes up before the court next month.