Respond on setting up natl consumer commission bench in city: HC to Centre

Nagpur: The Nagpur bench of Bombay high court on Wednesday directed the Central government to respond on setting up a regional/circuit bench of National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) in the city.
A division bench comprising justices Sunil Shukre and Govinda Sanap directed assistant solicitor general Nandesh Deshpande to submit a reply within four weeks.
The directives came while hearing a PIL (No. 29/2022) by ‘Citizens Forum for Equality’ through its president Madhukar Kukde and Consumer Court Advocates Association chief Anuradha Deshpande.
TOI on June 13 had published a report based on Kukde’s letter to NCDRC president RK Agrawal for having a permanent bench here. Highlighting the grievances of hundreds of litigants and lawyers from the region, who need to travel all the way to Delhi for NCDRC cases, the senior citizen had stated that the bench here would immensely help them and avoid travelling hassles.
Citing a letter written by Union minister and city MP Nitin Gadkari to consumer affairs minister Piyush Goyal in this regard, petitioner’s counsel Tushar Mandlekar said that the latter had responded positively.
The petitioners had also challenged the validity of Rule 6 of the ‘Consumer Rules 2020’ framed by the Maharashtra government under section 102 of the ‘Consumer Protection Act, 2019’. They further prayed for granting extension to the NCDRC president on the backdrop of “ever-increasing vacancies and huge pendency of cases”.
Contending that a lot of time, energy and money of citizens is wasted in traveling to Delhi, the petitioner pointed out that the Central government can set up a regional/circuit bench under Section 53 (2) of the Consumer Protection Act.
Informing that the NCDRC had time and again made a request to the Union ministry of consumer affairs to approve and notify setting up of 18 regional/circuit benches across the country, including Nagpur, Mandlekar stated that the Centre had failed to take any action in this regard till date.
Adding that the government had already constituted 17 benches of National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and 21 benches of Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) in India, he demanded that NCDRC benches should also be set up on similar lines for the benefit of consumers. He also pointed out at the huge pendency of 70,000 cases in all district commissions in Maharashtra and 40,000 cases in state commissions.