Hearings not taking place for years: Supreme Court flags serious concerns with consumer forums, seeks report

The Supreme Court on Thursday frowned upon the performance of consumer commissions across the country for the inordinate amount of time taken by them to decide consumer cases/ complaints.

A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana also took note of a newspaper report which termed the performance of consumer forums as "pitiful and poor".

In many pending matters, hearings do not take place for years, the Court noted.

"The moment you start paying for case disposal, you will see how the disposal will multiply. The moment you keep on adding more and more infrastructure, the courts and facilities, then unfortunately this is the outcome. There is a newspaper report also in which the following issues have been highlighted with respect to the pitiful and poor performance of the Consumer Commissions, including the National Consumer Commission. The inordinate delay in disposal of the pending matters, especially when even hearings are not taking place for years," the Court said.

Hence, it proceeded to seek a report from the president of the National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission (NCDRC) with respect to its pendency, composition, disposal of cases by different benches, estimated time needed to dispose off pending matters and whether the strength of the Commission needs to be increased.

Such information has to be furnished separately for State commissions as well, the Court added.

"The information should also indicate the oldest pendency. The pendency chart should also indicate year-wise pendency," the Court said in its order.

During the hearing, the Court also flagged a "quality crisis" at district consumer forums.

"At the District Consumer Forum, there is a quality crisis. They don't bother about what is the nature of the complaint and how, on merits, it is decided. In the State Commission, probably our impression is that there are not many arrears. But after whatever matters have been decided, it ultimately lands up in the National Commission. And this is how the arrears are piling up," CJI Kant remarked.

He said that he recently read an article which indicated that cases filed in 2019 were being listed only in 2021.

"If this is the situation which is persisting, then there may be no other way apart from increasing the strength. So please look into the matter," the CJI said.

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