Vijayawada: Only four district consumer fora out of 17 are functioning in Andhra Pradesh, making it difficult for people with consumer issues to seek redressal.
AP has got a sanction of 17 district consumer forums for the 13 districts as some bigger districts are allotted two fora. Each forum is to have a chairman and two members.
Only the consumer fora of Nellore, Kurnool, Visakhapatnam-1 and Vijayawada (Krishna) have full-fledged chairmen though with no members. The rest of the fora are empty.
When compared to a civil court where the petitioner has to pay prescribed fee to file the petition and hire an advocate to argue the case, any aggrieved person can approach the consumer fora by paying a small fee and can either hire an advocate or can argue the case self, to seek redressal. The District Consumer Forum is legally binding and it can even issue a warrant to arrest a person who flouts the norms of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
Lack of awareness, and the absence of consumer fora, has seen very poor response.
Bezawada Bar Association president O. Lakshmi Kanth said, “Anyone can approach consumer fora in districts to get redressal of grievances expeditiously with less expenses to incur to file a petition. Moreover, if the consumer fora are restored, it will help reduce burden on regular courts as consumers approach them and help avoid pendency of cases in courts.”
AP Bar Council member Muppala Subba Rao said, “Though the district consumer fora used to function well earlier redressing grievances of consumers, they are becoming defunct of late with no appointment of members. Some are on verge of closure for want of even minimum cases to take up for the day while the consumer associations which used to be active, are either getting disbanded or losing interest to fight for rights of consumers.”
The AP government in consultation with the judiciary is taking up recruitment of chairmen and members for the consumer fora.
A senior advocate from Visakhapatnam Prudhvi Raj said, “We want the government to expedite recruitment of office bearers and staff members to consumer fora in districts and help conduct of hearings in virtual mode similar on lines of regular courts in Covid times, to help consumers get justice.”
On the other hand, AP has no Central and State Administrative Tribunals yet and has to make the State Human Rights Commission and Lokayukta more functional.
