Is the consumer really the king in India

Is the consumer really the king in India?

Thursday was a red-letter for consumers in the country. Parliament put its seal of approval on the National Legal Services Authorities (Amendment) Bill. The Bill, which among other things, puts lok adalats on a permanent basis, offers a much-delayed but sorely-needed alternative mechanism for dealing with disputes.

Consumers, long at the receiving end, especially in their dealings with public utilities, will now have an alternative avenue for redressal of their grievances. About time too.The steady deterioration in the quality of governance over the past few years, has been matched by a corresponding decline in the quality of delivery in public utility services. Unfortunately, consumers had very few avenues where they could take their grievances.

Sure, they could take their complaints to the consumer courts but the latter could barely cope with the pressure. Consumer courts, moreover, can address only 'consumer' complaints. This effectively keeps public utilities such as health and civic services out of the purview of these courts. The amended Act also gives the adalats adjudicatory powers.This is a major improvement over the erstwhile system under which they could only try to settle disputes on the basis of a compromise formula. Especially since the decision of the adalat will be binding and treated on a par with the decree of a civil court. It is not only consumers who have reason to be happy. Lok adalats have made a significant contribution in settling industrial disputes and in disposing of cases where banks have filed suits against erring borrowers.

Given the numbers involved -according to the Standing Committee on Home Affairs there are 24 million cases pending in different courts - lok adalats can offer only one kind of remedy for a legal system that is close to choking. Part of the reason for the huge backlog of cases is the inadequacy of judicial officers. There are only 10.5 judges for every one million of our people as compared to 107 in the US. Moreover, the majority of our laws are antiquated.The remedy, therefore, lies in tackling the problem on many fronts: making our laws more relevant to the times, strengthening the judicial system, allowing courts to function uninterruptedly and dealing severely with litigants who deliberately create delays. Lok adalats can only help at the margin.