‘What’s the point of such commissions?’: CJI Kant flags consumer case backlog

Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant on Thursday raised a sharp alarm over the mounting backlog of cases before consumer commissions across the country, observing that prolonged delays were defeating the very purpose for which these specialised forums were created.

Hearing a matter concerning the functioning of consumer dispute redressal bodies, the CJI questioned the efficacy of the system after taking note of a media report about a case pending since 2019 that was listed only once in 2022 and had seen no hearing thereafter.

“We saw a news article stating that a case pending since 2019 was listed only once in 2022, and there has been no hearing since. Is this how consumer commissions function? What is the point of having such special commissions?” the CJI remarked.

The observation underscored the widening gap between the promise of swift consumer justice and the reality confronting litigants, many of whom turn to these forums precisely to avoid the prolonged battles associated with conventional litigation.

CJI Kant stressed that consumer commissions were conceived as avenues for speedy, accessible and affordable justice. If cases were allowed to languish for years, he said, the very objective behind creating these institutions stood undermined.

“We keep talking about infrastructure and benefits, yet this is how they are functioning?” he observed.

SC seeks comprehensive report from NCDRC

Taking a stern view of the situation, the Supreme Court directed the President of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) to submit a comprehensive report on the functioning of consumer fora across the country.

The report, to be submitted within two weeks, will have to detail the number of pending cases, existing vacancies, disposal rates of individual benches and whether additional consumer commissions are required to cope with the mounting workload.

The Bench also directed State Consumer Commissions and State Consumer Affairs Departments to furnish detailed data on pendency, including year-wise figures of pending cases.

The data, the court indicated, would help provide a clearer picture of the scale of the backlog and identify the institutional and administrative bottlenecks contributing to delays.

Vacancies, capacity under scrutiny

The Supreme Court's intervention brings renewed focus on the functioning and capacity of consumer redressal institutions, where vacancies and mounting caseloads have increasingly emerged as obstacles to timely justice.

The court emphasised that both the Centre and state governments would need to accord priority to filling vacant posts and strengthening the institutional infrastructure of consumer commissions.

The message from the apex court was unequivocal: institutions created to deliver swift relief cannot become another avenue where justice is delayed for years. Unless vacancies are filled, benches strengthened and mounting pendency brought under control, the promise of speedy consumer justice risks remaining only on paper.

With IANS inputs