Long court vacation goes against consumer interest

I have nothing against lawyers per se, but I certainly have strong reservations about their presence in consumer courts, because it militates against the very principle on which consumer protection jurisprudence and the grievance redress mechanism are built. They have not only slowed down the adjudication process in the consumer tribunals through repeated adjournments, but have also brought all the trappings of the civil court, making it difficult for consumers to fight their cases without lawyers.

Now they want the apex consumer court, the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, to have long summer and winter vacations like the Supreme Court and the High Courts and have sought the intervention of the Delhi High Court to ensure that. If you look at the Consumer Protection (Consumer Commission Procedure) Regulations, first notified in 1987 (under the Consumer Protection Act of 1986), later revised in 2005 and notified again in 2020 under the new Consumer Protection Act, 2019, none of them provide for winter and summer vacations. The Regulations mandate normal working hours on all working days of the Central government in case of the National Commission and all working days of the state government in case of state consumer disputes redressal commissions and the district consumer disputes redressal commissions. So, declaring summer and winter vacations clearly violates the law.

Yet, in a writ petition filed before the Delhi High Court, the All India Bar Association of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has sought directions from the High Court to the Union government as well as the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission to restore the summer vacation in the month of June and winter vacation in the last week of December in the calendar of the Commission, in consonance with the calendars of the Supreme Court and the High Court and other tribunals and commissions working under different ministries.

It is truly ironic that the lawyers, who are supposed to uphold the law, are seeking directions that go against the law!

Unfortunately, the consumer commissions at the national, state and the district levels did violate the Regulations of 1987 and 2005 and enjoyed summer, winter and even Dasehra vacations. In fact, a look at the National Commission’s calendar shows the declaration of summer and winter vacations till the year 2020. The calendar, however, changes from 2021 when the National Commission decided to abide by the Regulation notified in July 2020 and put a stop to those vacations and asked the state commissions and the district commissions to follow suit. Initially, some of the states were reluctant to comply, forcing the consumer affairs ministry in May 2022 to write to the chief secretaries of the states and the state commissions, urging them to comply with the Regulations in the interest of timely disposal of cases.

The effect of this, along with facilities like e-filing and videoconferencing, can be seen in the fact that the consumer commissions are recording for the first time a new, highly positive trend — the number of cases resolved in a year is more than the number of cases filed in that year. In 2023, for example, as against 1.26 lakh complaints filed, the number of cases disposed of was 1.36 lakh. The record of the National Commission vis-à-vis the disposal rate was even more remarkable. Consequently, there is a slow decline in the number of pending cases before these commissions in the last few years. From 5,60,700 in 2021, the number of pending cases came down to 5,43,359 in 2023.

While consumers are upbeat about this, it is unfortunate that the lawyers are seeking an interim order from the Delhi High Court directing the National Commission not to list any cases in the months of June and the last week of December. In other words, the lawyers now want a reversal of the encouraging developments of the last few years, just to suit their convenience.

With its promise of simple and speedy consumer justice, the Consumer Protection Act mandates that cases be decided as expeditiously as possible and within three months. The law also says that no adjournment shall ordinarily be given. But, unfortunately, adjournments have been commonplace, thanks to lawyers.

Studies on the working of the consumer courts, by the Indian Institute of Public Administration, have consistently underscored this. Pointing to frequent postponement of the hearings as the biggest impediment to speedy justice before the consumer courts, its report of 2020 said that in 71.8 per cent of the cases filed before the district commissions, adjournments, often given for frivolous reasons, delayed the proceedings. In 25.6 per cent of the cases, such adjournments exceeded seven!

The study, which analysed the procedural delay in the disposal of consumer complaints, also blamed lawyers for introducing unnecessary technicalities in the proceedings. Now, their writ petition, seeking to restore the long vacations of the apex consumer court, is certainly not in the interest of consumers or consumer justice.