The Delhi High Court has directed the AAP government to immediately fill vacancies in consumer courts in the Capital while noting that there is a huge backlog of cases.
It also asked the government to provide basic infrastructure such as laptops, computers, toilet and water facilities, refrigerator, etc.
Consumer courts were established under the Consumer Protection Act to deal with consumer disputes, conflicts and grievances. They were envisaged to offer ordinary consumers a less expensive and often speedy redressal of their grievances.
In November last year, the High Court came across an insurance claim case that remained unresolved before a consumer court in Janakpuri for over 14 years, prompting it to dig deeper into the issue.
According to a report submitted by the president of the consumer court, Janakpuri, 1,344 complaints were pending for final hearing, three of which were over 15 years old.
The president submitted that for effective functioning of the consumer court, there was an urgent need to fill the existing vacancies of stenographers, data entry operators, senior assistant UDC and Class IV personnel. In addition, the president sought further staff and infrastructure requirements.
After perusing the report, Justice Singh said the huge backlog of cases in the consumer forum could be because of the unfilled vacancies.
The judge decided to expand the scope of the case and asked the State consumer court and all district consumer courts in the city to submit a report having details of cases/complaints pending for final hearing, infrastructural requirements and status of vacancies.
The court also directed the Principal Secretary-cum-Commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs to coordinate with Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal (retd.) and president of the State Consumer Redressal Forum to ascertain the vacancies across the State and district consumer courts here.
“The said official shall ensure that after coordination on a regular basis and taking steps, vacancies for both staff and members are filled up expeditiously across such fora, and the infrastructural requirements are provided to such fora on an urgent basis in an expeditious manner,” Justice Singh ordered.
