It was with shock and concern MGP learnt that Mysuru District Redressal Consumer Forum does not have a permanent President since 2024. Only recently it got a new President. And that too on a temporary basis.
Shocked by this revelation, we started to collect more information. Even more shocking facts and sad way of helping the consumers to get speedy justice came to light.
Consumer Protection Act of 1986 was a progressive act passed by the parliament to give justice in 90 days. Later in 2019 a new act replaced it. The new act explicitly covers e-commerce, introduces strict product liability, establishes the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) to handle misleading advertisements among other things, and provides for mediation as a faster dispute resolution mechanism.
Despite the best intentions of our Parliament, the ground reality is vastly different. Hardly any judgment is given in less than 90 days as mandated. Consumer fora are actually courts. But they are not to be referred as courts to prevent complainants being intimidated by legalistic hearing. As much as possible, lawyers not to be encouraged. Unfortunately Consumer Fora often encourages to hire lawyers. Procedure should be simple and not legalistic. Again in reality some formal procedures are enforced. When it started a simple complaint on a “post card” was accepted. In short the very spirit of Consumer Protection Act is ignored to a great extent. And today Consumer Fora have become as bad as civil courts.
Now this is made even worse, the way Consumer Fora are “managed” by the bureaucracy in charge. In Karnataka there are 34 District Consumer Redressal Commissions. 15 of them do not have permanent Presidents. Instead they have “OOD presidents. It is not clear if OOD stands for out of duty or on official duty. Some of them do not even meet the minimum requirement of either an active District Judge, a retired District Judge, or a legal professional who meets all the statutory criteria to hold the position of a District Judge. Bureaucrats in charge use the loophole of last criterion to appoint a person as president. In true spirit of the act such mischievous interpretation should not be used to help the consumers.
For example for Mysuru District they have appointed “OOD” president. He retired from Railways and happens to have a law degree. Can any one expect a greater travesty of misusing the loophole of appointing the president?
For some time, reasons given for not filling with Permanent positions was that the Supreme Court is adjudicating a case to appoint presidents for Consumer Redressal Fora. Even after SC giving the judgment, Karnataka is still appointing only “OOD” presidents.
In the case of Mysuru, there was even a bigger sad story to show the total indifference of bureaucracy. A lady member with no qualifications to be a judge was appointed as “OOD” president. Within two days of appointment she was urging the bureaucrats to either make her an ordinary member or transfer back to Chamarajnagar where she was a member. Her reasons were poor health.
What is even more astounding was that Mysuru has the third largest number of cases filed ( as of 31-05-2026, 17126 vs. 4500 in Chamarajnagar). Also in terms of on executed cases ( judgments given but no action has been implemented), Mysuru District is the second largest with 1358 after Belgavi. For Chamarajnagar it is just 25. What an irony. It has now permanent President and Mysuru has “OOD” president without qualifications. Can there be a more shameful indifference in poor implementation of Consumer Protection act?
There is no use going to the court with a PIL. Complaining to top bureaucrats in charge of implementing Consumer Protection act is also of no consequence. Complaining to National Consumer Redressal Commission which is overall charge to ensure proper implementation of the act is also likely to have no impact. All these bodies are more than likely to be fully aware of the problem. Only ones who can help us are honest and dedicated MLAs and MPs. They were elected to help their voters who are all consumers in one way or the other. Today these consumers are all taken for granted. In private sector, Consumers are “KINGS” and in public sector, they are “Masters”. But in reality they are treated worse in both the sectors.