Consumer rights campaigns fine, but district forums in sleep mode

NEW DELHI: Beyond the high-decibel campaigns on consumer rights, the reality of consumer forums that are meant to protect the rights is alarming, if not shocking. Consider this. A district consumer forum member in Jharkhand came to the court after consuming alcohol.

In Manipur, many presidents of district forums do not know how to write orders. Several forums don't have postal stamps to send notices and orders. They don't have stenographers to type orders and in many states the members get paid lesser than that of a class-IV employee.

Heads of state consumer dispute redressal commissions (SCDRC) recently shared the sorry state of affairs in district courts across the country at a conference organized by the consumer affairs ministry . Former Supreme Court judge and president of National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission (NCDRC) Justice D K Jain, who chaired the meeting, admitted that several district forums are in bad shape.

Justice Jain candidly admitted that not enough attention has been given to the selection of members of these forums, many of whom are social workers. He acknowledged that significant portion of them are only interested in getting a designation and post and have “little interest in this job.“

So, practically presidents of these forums write judgments, he said.

Highlighting how unruly members could be, a representative from Jharkhand state commission said that many of them don't want to work beyond two hours a day .He urged that there should be some mechanism to take action against members who attend court drunk.

Justice Jain, however, asked the state commissions to resolve issues and to ensure these forums perform better.He added that dipping of disposal of cases is a dangerous trend. The disposal of cases has gone down from 1.61 lakh in 2011 to 1.26 lakh in 2014.