Concerned over massive vacancies and severe deficiency in the infrastructure across consumer courts in the country, the Supreme Court has asked the Central government whether a “legislative impact study” was carried out before a new consumer protection law was notified in July 2020. Under the 2019 law, a district forum can decide a consumer dispute up to ₹1 crore as against ₹20 lakh under the old law. Similarly, pecuniary jurisdiction of state commission has been enhanced from ₹1 crore to ₹10 crore, and a national commission can now decide disputes over and above ₹10 crore. Citing these radical changes, the bench said: “The new act expands the jurisdiction of the consumer forums to many new areas and thus, logically a legislative impact study ought to have been completed, keeping in mind the litigation, which will shift in the subjects added to the jurisdiction of the consumer tribunals. This would also result in transfer of a large number of cases between forums.

Source: Hindustan Times February 25, 2021 01:17 UTC