CONSUMER PROTECTION

Consumer gets little protection from law

Sanjog Maheshwari

THE CONSUMER Protection Law may not, prima facie, appear consumer-hostile but the ground realities under which it operates render it totally ineffective against the goverment-owned utilities, boards and organisations, etc.

If any government department, body, public utility concern or organisation rubs you on the wrong side, as an ordinary consumer the best options for you are: (a) to suffer patiently in silence, (2) bribe your way out of the problem. Do not agitate law through the Consumer Protection Act 1986 as amended by the (Amendment) Act 2002 unless you are a hard-core moralist ready to brave an extremely long drawn and relentlessly cruel legal battle in which all the odds are against you and the end of the tunnel may not be in sight during your life time.

For you Mr. Ordinary litigant, to be pitted against a formidable litigation-minded government, in quest of justice, would be like chasing the elusive mirage, a thoroughly nerve-wracking and disastrously expensive experience. Even the hardiest amongst you having nerves of steel will yearn to quit the legal battle in the midway but will find it not easy. Before long, he will realise that he is riding a tiger from which it is impossible to dismount unscathed.

The Consumer Protection Act has not so far conferred any power on the redress forums constituted under it to pass interim orders by way of injunction, etc., pending original proceedings instituted before the forums and as such in its present form offers no protection against the atrocities and dilatory tactics of the bureaucrats and officials of the litigant government agency concerned.

Further, in the long-standing consumer disputes the government and its agencies find it most convenient to file an appeal against each and every order passed by a lower court. In this three tier justice delivery system, an appeal against the orders of a district forum can be filed in the State commission against whose orders in turn, the decision would lie with the national commission and then the matter can go up to the Supreme Court.

For an ordinary litigant-consumer, it becomes an interminable legal battle against the almighty government which can easily afford infinite time, a battery of lawyers, unlimited resources in the form of taxpayers' money to spend in defending even a totally hopeless and defenceless case?

Moreover, the officials of the government and its agencies routinely flout the court orders when finally passed. They hold them in utter contempt and wait for the initiation of contempt proceedings. Evading presence to respond to the court's queries, frequently seeking adjournments, seeking refuge in myriad technicalities and resorting to other delaying tactics are the other bureaucratic practices that add to the endless woes of a litigant consumer against which even the courts are helpless.

Changes are overdue

Ironically, the Act treats the very much handicapped litigant consumer as evenly matched with and equal to an almighty and awfully powerful government. It thus ignores the obvious and fails to provide level playing ground for the consumer. Obviously in actual practice the Act operates heavily loaded in favour of the government and justice is routinely denied to the litigant consumer. Drastic changes in it are overdue.

The consumers are rapidly losing faith in this nascent consumer grievances redress and justice delivery system. In practice the Act miserably fails to provide any relief to an aggrieved consumer against the wrongs done to him by the government-owned service providers, agencies, public utility concerns, boards and organisations.

The bureaucrats should be forced to implement the court orders as soon as they are passed. Their penchant for going in for appeal against every order of the court and the tendency to wait for the initiation of contempt proceedings must be curbed with heavy hand. The Act needs to be amended to provide for built-in safeguards against those actions of the government which are inimical to the interests of the litigant consumers.

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