Chennai

The first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy before whom a plea in this regard came up, noting that a judge has already been appointed for the purpose of filling up such vacancies, said: “In view of the State Assembly elections, appropriate steps could not be taken to fill up vacancies in the State Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission and the District Consumer Dispute Redressal Commissions.” 

“It is hoped that now that the elections are over, all vacancies will be filled up in accordance with law within the next eight weeks,” the bench said. 

There have been a plethora of public interest litigations both at the principal seat as well as the bench in Madurai that out of the 30 district forums, as many as 25 are functioning without a permanent president and 19 are functioning without permanent members. 

Since as per the Consumer Protection Rules, 2020, there has to be one president and two members appointed for each district forum, the cases are getting adjourned in many such forums owing to lack of quorum, a plea in this regard said. 

Another plea claimed that the posts of members are kept vacant for more than eight months and owing to these, consumers are deprived of their fundamental rights. The plea on pointing out that over 8,245 cases are pending across the State, submitted that such a situation only encouraged violators at the cost of hapless consumers.

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