♤ Issues with Consumer Courts:

o Inordinate delays in appointment of members of adjudication panels by state governments.

o Unnecessary technicalities in the judgement’s procedures.

o Frequent adjournments of the proceedings.

o Miserly compensation discourages consumers to approach these forums.

♤ New issues have emerged due to the rapid advances in digital technologies such as online frauds, identity thefts, credit card cloning, e-commerce related issues etc.

In order to reform the present state, Consumer Protection Bill, 2018 needs to be passed quickly. It includes important provisions such as:

♤ Setting up of an executive agency, to be known as the Central Consumer Protection Agency, to promote, protect and enforce the consumer rights.

♤ The Bill proposes time-bound settlement of consumer disputes i.e., 3 months from the date of receipt of notice by opposite party and 5 months for cases which involve testing product samples..

♤ It also proposes use of Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanism.

♤ Penalising of celebrity endorsements for false and misleading advertisements.

An effective Consumer protection movement needs the proactive support of the government, business, civil society, educational and research institutions. It is time that we expand our horizons of consumer protection by recognizing “Digital Content” as a third category along with goods and services (as has been done by the UK recently). Additionally alternative dispute resolution methods like Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) need to be adopted.