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Stamp shortage over but relief elusive as work yet to pick pace

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Pavneet Singh Chadha

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Tribune News Service

Mohali, March 24

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Despite winning cases in consumer courts, litigants are unable to get compensations in time as postage stamps were unavailable till last week, due to which the certified copies of order/judgments could not be mailed to the petitioners and respondents.

The working of 20 district consumer forums across the state was hit due to the unavailability of postage stamps for the past 9 months.

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From January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2017, more than 2,500 cases were disposed of by the Punjab State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, but it was only able to post orders for cases till May 31, 2017, after which the previous stock of government-certified postage stamps was exhausted.

Officials at the state Commission said they had written to the Department of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs of Punjab over the past few months, but the problem had persisted due to the paucity of funds released to the Commission. Last week, some funds were released for postage stamps.

The Registrar at the Punjab State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission said, “We have been unable to send summons, notices and order copies since June last year. The Department has allotted funds to the tune of Rs 6 lakh for the postage stamps last week, and stamps have been procured, but due to the pendency, stamping and posting the orders will take at least a month. We have started dispatching the orders.”

The litigants pay a court fee up to Rs 5,000 for making complaints, but have to wait for the compensation even after the verdict is in their favour.

From April 1, 2017, to October 31, 2017, the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commmission had collected Rs 22.15 lakh as the court fee for complaints.

Sandeep Mahajan, a petitioner in a case, had been awarded Rs 60 lakh principal amount, 12 per cent interest and Rs 60,000 as litigation expenses as compensation in mid-December, 2017, but he is still awaiting the order copy. “Due to the shortage of funds, the petitioners are suffering. This helps the opposite party as the mandatory 30-day period of compensating the litigant starts from the date of the receipt of the order,” he said.

An advocate at the Mohali consumer court said: “The opposite simply does not have an incentive to collect the certified order.”

Justice (Retd) Paramjeet Singh Dhaliwal, President of the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Punjab, said: “Depending on the requirement, we have now started sending the postage stamps acquired last week to the district consumer courts. In the due course of time, the pending orders will be dispatched so that the litigants do not suffer.”

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