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IN recent months, I have heard several consumers complain about the way manufacturers and service providers have begun to harass those who go to the consumer courts. Take the case of the consumer from Agra, whose mobile telephone instrument went out of order within months of purchase. When repeated complaints lodged with the dealer and the manufacturer did not bring forth any satisfactory response, he decided to take his complaint to the consumer court. When his case came up before the District Forum, the opposite parties failed to appear. The case was adjourned to give them another opportunity to represent their case, but without success. Since the object of the Consumer Protection Act is to provide inexpensive and speedy adjudication of consumer complaints, the law prescribes that the court can proceed to hear the case ex-parte in case the opposite party does not give its version within the stipulated time or does not appear before the court. Now apparently, the opposite party’s lawyer told the consumer that he would not represent the case before the District Forum, but will appeal against the ex-parte decision of the Forum before the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in Lucknow. This has got the consumer really worried. "I now wonder whether I did the right thing in filing the case because going to Lucknow is both expensive and time-consuming", he said. In at least three other cases, consumers have received similar ‘threats’. They have been told by lawyers representing the opposite party that they will not respond to the court’s notice and after the case is decided ex-parte, they will file an appeal before the State Commission, forcing the consumer to fight the case in the state capital. If this is a new trend, this is certainly against the spirit of the consumer protection law. In fact, when the CP Act was amended in 2002 (the amendments came into force in March 2003), the government raised the pecuniary jurisdiction of the District Forum from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 20 lakh, so that consumers could file almost all their cases before the District Forum, which is more easily accessible than the State Commission, located in the state capitals. So such attempts by manufacturers and service providers would amount to misuse of the consumer protection law and needs to be strongly discouraged. In fact in cases such as this, I would suggest that the consumers send by post, a written reply to the State Commission, urging the Commission to slap a stiff penalty on such appellants by imposing costs and also punitive damages. Consumers could also in such cases, quote the observations of the National Commission in the case of Pramod Kumar Bothra vs Ishwar Chand Sharma, wherein the apex consumer court had taken a very strong objection to such behaviour on the part of the appellant. In this case, an appeal was filed before the National Commission alleging that the State Commission had erred in proceeding ex-parte against the appellant and therefore the order should be set aside and the appellant permitted to lead evidence in the appeal before the National Commission. The National Commission dismissed the appeal with costs assessed at Rs 5000. While doing so, it observed thus: "The appellant neither entered appearance personally or through an authorised agent or an advocate despite being served of the first notice nor filed the written version of the case either within the time allowed or even thereafter. The appellant was given a fresh notice of hearing of the case, when he again failed to appear`85. The appellant did not dispute the allegations contained in the complaint by filing its written version before the State Commission. "The State Commission was fully justified to base its findings on the basis of evidence brought to its notice by the complainant. If no version has been filed before the State Commission then no amount of evidence or material can be looked upon as plea not put forward. At the appellate stage the appellant cannot be allowed to refer to its version in the memorandum of appeal to contend that the findings recorded by the State Commission are not correct." (First appeal no 437 of 1994, decided on Jan 3, 1996). These observations should
certainly help in defeating such attempts by manufacturers and service
providers to browbeat consumers. I must also remind consumers that
earlier, the courts did not have the power to impose punitive damages,
but now they do. The Consumer Protection (Amendment) Act, 2002, provides
that (under Section 14) "Forum shall have the power to grant
punitive damages in such circumstances as it deems fit". And there
is no limit on punitive damages. So this provision can be utilised to
send out a message that consumer law cannot be misused by trade and
industry.
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