India Supreme Court: Flags Delays in 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.Justice Joymalya Bagchi, CJI Surya Kant and Justice V MohanaSupreme CourtThere is a newspaper report highlighting the pitiful and poor performance of the Consumer Commissions.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