UT consumer panels see rise in cases

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Chandigarh, July 27

With increase in awareness, more and more people are now approaching the district and state consumer commissions in the UT for exercising their consumer rights.

The number of complaints filed in the two consumer commissions here has increased in the past four years. During the last two years, the consumer commissions recorded a receipt of average 15 cases per day. A total of 7,200 cases were filed during 2022 and 2023. In 2020, 1,480 complaints were received while 3,098 complaints were received in the year 2021. The complaints were related to banking, housing, finance, automobiles and telecom among others.

Consumer rights activist and advocate Pankaj Chandgothia said apart from increased awareness regarding the consumers rights, the amended Consumer Protection Act, 2019 also helped people file cases more liberally.

The Act, which was implemented in 2020, allows citizen to file case in his home or work district even if the cause of action took place anywhere in the country. The financial limit on the basis of which cases could be filed in the commission has also increased.

Advocate Narender Yadav said, “People are approaching the consumer commission in large numbers due to speedy disposal. There are cases when the commission even issued arrest warrants if builders failed to comply with its orders.”

The city consumer courts have witnessed cases of value as small as 50 paise relating to a cold drink bottle and as high as Rs 1.9 crore relating to real estate.

A cold drink bottle was sold by a shop for Rs 10 although the printed MRP was Rs 9.50. The purchaser filed a consumer case complaining about being overcharged. The shopkeeper took the defence that 50 paise extra has been charged for refrigerating the bottle. However, the purchaser pointed out that a cold drink was supposed to be given cold and also it was printed on the bottle itself “serve chilled”.

The consumer court agreed with the consumer’s contention and directed the shopkeeper to give Rs 500 as penalty, which amounts to 1000 times the overcharged amount.

The consumer commissions was set up in the UT in 1989. In these 36 years, 95% of the cases in the state and district consumer commission have been resolved. The commissions have received around 1,03,134 cases since its inception. Out of these, 99,000 have been resolved.