Guwahati, Jan. 31: Disposal of nearly 50 per cent of the complaints lodged with various district consumer protection forums across Assam are pending for years, while the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, says the time limit for disposal of a complaint is 90-150 days.
A right to information (RTI) application filed by a local NGO, the Consumers’ Legal Protection Forum, revealed this and showed that only eight districts of the state have permanent consumer protection forums, while another 15 districts have only temporary units functioning with skeletal staff and minimum facilities. There are at present 27 districts in Assam.
The NGO had filed an RTI application with the state food, civil supplies and consumer affairs department in August last year seeking the present status of consumer cases. The replies revealed that nearly 50 per cent of the cases registered with the eight consumer protection forums between July and July were yet to be disposed.
“Our application, filed with the chief public information officer of the department, exposed how the issue of consumer rights protection has been neglected in the state, and was limited only to advertisements. The department replied that only eight forums, in Nalbari, Kokrajhar, Dibrugarh, Guwahati, Tezpur, Jorhat, Silchar and Nagaon are permanent, although we have 27 districts. It also said there were 13 temporary forums, but did not provide us with the number of cases pending with them, ” secretary of the NGO, Ratul Mahanta, said. The data provided by the department said Silchar recorded the highest number of 199 complaints (88 pending) followed by 142 in Nagaon and 122 in Tezpur (62 pending). The district forum in Jorhat received 62 complaints (42 pending), Nalbari registered 49 cases (23 pending) and Kokrajhar received 16, of which eight were pending. Disposal of the pending cases could take years.
Mahanta said the department did not provide the number of cases registered with the district consumer forums in Guwahati and Dibrugarh, the two biggest commercial centres of the state.
Gauhati High Court lawyer Ajoy Hazarika said according to the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, the time limit for disposal of a complaint is 90 days, and if product testing is involved, it is 150 days. According to the act, each district should have a permanent consumer forum with a president and two members, he said.
But the RTI application revealed that the president’s post in Tezpur consumer forum was lying vacant since December and was functioning without the two other members since April. Similarly, the district forum in Silchar did not have a president and the Kokrajhar forum did not have the two members.
“It is unfortunate to see such negligence regarding consumer affairs, and that too, 25 years after the Consumer Protection Act came into effect, ” Mahanta said.
(THE TELEGRAPH)
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