Supreme Court
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has given great relief to consumers by removing a major legal flaw in the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. The Supreme Court ruled that Consumer Fourum can implement all its orders, not only interim orders. The bench of Justice JK Maheshwari and Justice Rajesh Bindal ruled that the 2002 amendment had created a difference in implementing the interim orders by the Consumer Fourum due to the flaws of the draft. But now using the principles of legal interpretation, the apex court has clarified that all the orders passed between March 15, 2003 and July 20, 2020 can be implemented like a civil court decree.
Consumers were denied meaningful justice-SC
The bench of the Supreme Court clarified that the 2002 amendment to the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) incorrectly limited the powers of the Consumer Fourum by replacing the words “each order” from the “interim order”. This made it impossible to implement its final decisions for the Consumer Fourum. On Friday, the court said that this flaw had denied consumers of meaningful justice. The court directed that Section 25 of the 1986 Act should be read as allowing the enforcement of “any order”, which can restore the original position of the law.
Should feel not on paper, really justice got-SC
The Supreme Court bench said, “Consumers should feel that they have not only received justice not only on paper,” said. He emphasized that the orders of the Consumer Fourum should be implemented as the orders of civil courts under the Code of Civil Procedure.
What was the matter?
The case is of a long -running dispute with flat buyers of Pune -based Palm Groves Cooperative Housing Society. In 2007, the District Consumer Forum directed the builder to execute a conveyance dese (transfer) deed in favor of the society, but the order was canceled by the High Court citing the 2002 amendment. The Supreme Court has now rejected those decisions and said that such execution petitions were really worth considering.
Effect of 2002 amendment
Attorney General R. Venkatarmani underlined the disastrous impact on consumers from the 2002 amendment. Statistics have shown that the pending number of execution petitions in district forums increased from 1,470 cases of 1992-2002 to 42,118 between 2003 and 2019, and even after the improvement of 2019, increased between 2020 and 2024 to 56,578. The number of cases pending in state forums was 6,104 (2004-2024) and the number of cases pending in the National Consumer Disputes Prevention Commission (NCDRC) was 1,945 (2011-2024).
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