Bombay high court to Maharashtra government: Provide infrastructure to consumer forums

The Bombay high court has set a deadline of September 12 for the state government to provide infrastructure and staff to district consumer forums across the state.

A division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Amjad Sayyed gave the directions while hearing a public interest litigation filed by Mumbai Grahak Panchayat, a leading consumer NGO.

Appearing for the Panchayat, advocate Uday Warunjikar, pointed out to the court that non-official members appointed on the State Consumer Protection Council were not experts in the field and they were appointed only because of political connections. These appointments were done before the issuance of Government Resolution (GR) dated October 19, 2013.

The court directed the government to cancel these appointments made before the issuance of the resolution. The government has also been told to make fresh appointments of non-official members of the council by September 30, in keeping with the regulations mentioned in the GR.

The state has also been told to issue advertisements in local newspapers and websites to appoint new persons as non-official members of the Council, as per the guidelines mentioned in the resolution.

The PIL raised many issues such as lack of infrastructure, filling up of vacant posts of members and presidents of consumer forums and insufficient salaries paid to them. It alleged that out of 40 consumer forums in the state, 19 were dysfunctional due to vacant posts of members.

Acting on the directions of the high court, the state had earlier filled up 30 posts of presidents in as many as 40 consumer forums in the state. However, ten are still vacant and efforts are being made to fill them. Furthermore, 34 posts of members out of a total of 84 in the forums were lying vacant and the process of appointing these members was in final stage.