Defunct district and State consumer forums are causing inconvenience to people as their complaints are pending since State and district units are without a chairperson and left with a few members to take up hearing. Under the Consumer Protection Act, it is mandatory upon the concerned consumer forum to complete a hearing within 90 days after a complaint is lodged.
Since the post of the chairperson and members have been vacant for the past couple of years hence complaints are pending. As per the rule, once the hearing the completed, the chairperson gives the final verdict where the presence of two members of the forum is required. For instance, in the Gumla district, the post of chairperson was vacant from 2019 till Jitendra Kumar Singh was notified as a new chairperson. But he has not assumed the charge so far and there are a total of 91 pending cases.
Garhwa district had witnessed a similar situation where the post of the chairperson remained vacant from August 2017. For the Ranchi district consumer forum, the government has notified Judge Deepak Nath Tiwari for this post. But he can join only after he retires from his post in February. Even the post of the registrar is vacant. No wonder in the last three years 1267 cases have piled up which are waiting for the hearing.
The poor functioning of the Ranchi district consumer forum has left people disappointed to such an extent that people are not even turning up to lodge their complaints. In the last 11 months, only 91 aggrieved consumers lodged the complaint.
Similarly, for more than one and half years, the state consumer forum is without a chairperson and members resulting in a huge backlog of pending cases around 1132.
