Obnoxious functioning of consumer fora/commissions- letter to minister

File: Comp/minofcs ker-cdrfpkd n kscdrc-080111                                                    08 Jan 2011

Shri. C. Divakaran

Minister

Food & Civil Supplies, Consumer Protection etc

Room No. 131, Second Floor, North Block

Govt. Secretariat, Thiruvananthapuram-1

COMPLAINT: OBNOXIOUS FUNCTIONING OF

DISTRICT CONSUMER DISPUTES REDRESAL FORUM (DCDRF), PALAKKAD AND

KERALA STATE CONSUMER DISPUTES REDRESSAL COMMISSION (KSCDRC), THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

1.      This is to bring to your notice the most obnoxious functioning of the District Consumer Disputes Redresal Forum, Palakkad and Kerala State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Thiruvananthapuram.

2.      Gist of Complaints:

2.1.DCDRF , Palakkad.

2.1.1.      It holds sittings for only less than an hour per day. The average number of cases (all types) listed is around 12 of which almost 12, if not all, are adjourned in less than 30 minutes.

2.1.2.      The sittings begin irregularly and have started even at 11.15 am depending on the arrival of the President!

2.1.3.      Though the CPA has laid down a limit of 90 days for the disposal of the complaint, this is invariably not followed.

2.1.4.      Unwarranted adjournments without recording even any reasons!

2.1.5.      The provisions of the CPA  is willfully subverted to favour clients represented by advocates. A case in point is the refusal to compensate the party aggrieved by unwarranted adjournments. (This is in blatant violation of Sec 11 of the Consumer Protection Regulations, 2005)

2.1.6.      Not recording the docket truthfully.

2.2.KSCDRC, Thiruvananthapuram.

2.2.1.      While all the complaints listed against the district forum may be fully or partly applicable to the KSCDRC the exact position can be easily ascertained from a cursory look at their records.

2.2.2.      The orders of the Commission are , to say the least, an insult to common sense and tantamounts to subversion of justice.

3. Details of the complaints.

3.1.DCDRF, Palakkad.

3.1.1.      The veracity of the complaint at para 2.1.1. can easily be established by verifying the records of the DCRDF.

3.1.2.      The compliant at para 2.1.2. is from personal experience and can be ascertained by carrying our a survey amoung the complainants/respondents who have attended the hearings at the DCDRF. It would be prudent to carryout the survey amoung those whose cases have been disposed off and logically it should be carried out amoung the complainants/respondents of the last 100 cases disposed off.

3.1.3.       The veracity of the complaint at para 2.1.3. can easily be established by verifying the records of the DCRDF. As per information received under the RTI Act, as on 31/5/2010, there were 109 cases pending for more than 3 months but less than 1 year, 37 cases pending for more than 1 year but less than 3 years and 15 cases pending for more than 3 years! In OP 282/99 (OP No 85/95 transferred from Malappuram), the opposite party had produced interim stay order on 28/10/99 and the stay was vacated only  8/6/2005 but through out this period the case was listed 58 times and adjourned! It was finally posted for orders on 6/7/07 but was opened for re-hearing suo moto on 15/2/08 and went on an adjournment spree from 3/3/08 to 31/5/2010. During this spree it was adjourned 17 times, including 5 times for want of members/President and 10 times for orders only!

3.1.4.      The veracity of the complaint at para 2.1.4. has been partly brought out in para 3.1.3 above. Also. in CC No 171/99, which had been remitted to the DCDRF by the KSCDRC after almost 8 years on 31/10/2006 with the specific direction to just consider the question of the sum awarded earlier being a genuine pr-estimate of damages or penalty and also whether the complainant is  entitled to claim compenation for mental agony, the case was adjourned many times without adequate reasons or for fraudulent reasons before being disposed off after 11 months! In fact on the first date of hearing, on 20/2/2008, the reason given for adjournment is ‘for want of staff‘. During the 2nd date, that is 25/3/2008, the reason given is ‘for want of quorum‘. However, inspection of the attendence registers for relevant dates show that both the reasons are false.

3.1.5.      The veracity of the complaint at para 2.1.5. can be verified from the case file in OP 171/99. In fact, even in executing the order, the DCDRF had defaulted as the last instalment of the award has not be paid to me, the complainant. I have been demanding that the amount should be paid by DD payable at Palakkad and sent to my home address or if it has to be collected from the DCRDF, the cost of adjournment @Rs 500/- per adjournment has to be paid. (Right now, I am not mentioning anything about the gross unfairness of the order itself whereby a refund of Rs 13,125/- paid and a compensation of Rs 2500/- awarded by the DCRDF in 1999 was reduced to refund of Rs 8000/- and compensation of Rs 2000/- only after a painstaking and costly pursuit of the matter for 8 years in the KSCDRC which alone had cost me, the complainant, not less than Rs 25,000/-!)

3.1.6.      The veracity of the complaint at para 2.1.6 has been brought out illustratively in para 3.1.4 above.

3.2.KSCDRC, Thiruvananthapuram.

3.2.1.      Some examples of the grossest wayward functioning of teh KSCDRC can be seen in the following cases:

3.2.1.1.In CC 171/99, the judgement debtor had approached the KSCDRC with four cases: IA 325/2000, A 384/2000, RP 20/2000 and RP 71/2003. I have not yet received the orders in RP 71/2003.

3.2.1.2.In A 384/2000, the order is dated 30/9/2006 and there was a direction to appear before the DCDRF on 31/10/2006 but its copy was not made available to me till Mar 2007! (Date of posting- 9/3/07!). The order in RP 20/2000 is dated 18/10/2006 but was posted on 8/12/2006. It also mentioned about the disposal of A 384/2000 and the direction to appear before the DCDRF on 31/10/2006. Since both the orders were received after 31/10/2006, an application was submitted to the DCDRF seeking the date of receipt of the orders by them. But on 6/1/2007 they confirmed, through their letter No C1/133/06, that they had not received the copy of the orders till then. Finally, it was on 31/1/08 that the DCDRF intimated the disposal of the A 384/2000 by the KSCDRC and scheduled the 1st hearing of the remitted CC on 20/2/2008!

3.2.1.3.The decisions of the KSCDRC are not merely a mockery of justice and insult to comon sense but gross subversion of the justice delivery system. The following docuemnts are attached as proof:

3.2.1.3.1.      Notice for hearing in IA 568/08 in FA 210/2008 and

3.2.1.3.2.      Orders in FA 210/2008

Needless to say the order which says that no application for condoning the delay has been submitted can only be a fraud when as per their own records they have issued a notice for a hearing on that very application (IA or Interim Appeal is their jargon!)

4.      I request you to take necessary action to bring the criminals to book. I understand that there are provisions in the IPC to book these fraudsters in offices of authority. I am sure you will appreciate the public interest in this matter. For the records, the matter of this fraud by the KSCDRC was taken up with the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission. But their reply was a perfunctory advice to submit an appeal against the order of the KSCDRC. This was not agreeable because it is perceived as yet another way to bypass the complaint about the fraud perpetuted by the KSCDRC itself.

5.      Looking forward to a reply indicating the action taken on this complaint. Forwarding this complaint to the very accused for disposal at their end will not do. As a citizen of this democracy, I, amoung others, look forward to our representatives in the the law making bodies and those amoung them who are in executive offices to look into these kind of serious complaints and do the needful to rectify them and prevent their recurrence.

Yours truly

(P M Ravindran)

The crime of non-governance and quasi judicial organisations

File: Comp/CMK-120110                                                                                                                                        12 Jan 2010

Sri V S Achuthanandan

Chief Minister, Kerala

Secretariate, Thiruvananthapuram     

WHAT IS THE GOVT DOING TO ENSURE THAT THE INSTITUTIONS OF GOVERNMENT ARE DELIVERING WHAT THEY ARE EXPECTED TO DELIVER?

1.      Right at the outset please permit me to confess that this letter is born not out of faith in our

political system but in the belief that in a democracy it is the responsibility of the elected representatives to ensure that the services of the government are delivered to the people effectively and efficiently. I am writing this to bring to your notice certain flagrant violations of the law by those tasked, empowered and compensated to enforce them. The following examples, involving the quasi judical bodies, are illustrative of the malaise that has eaten into the vitals of our justice administration system, a major function of governance.

2.      The Kerala State Information Commission (KSIC) is a typical example of how a well

meant system can be subverted by those tasked to make it work. Every order of the Commission that I have in my possession is a testimony to the wilful subversion of law by the information commissioners. The first pro-democracy legislation of indepnedent India- the Right to Information Act- uniquely remains the one legislation that can be misused (very much illegally, no doubt) only by those empowerd to enforce it- the information comissioners. It can happen this way. In every complaint/appeal that is before the Commission, by the time the Commission passes its order the period for imposing the maximum penalty, that is Rs 25,000/- would be over. So the information commissioners can easily ‘fail‘ to impose the madatory penalty by taking a bribe of  say, Rs 15,000/- from the delinquent public information officers. And there may be PIOs who are prepared to pay the complete Rs 25,000/- as bribe if only to avoid a black mark in their dossier! Further, when the task of the IC is limited to finding answers to just three questions it beats one why they should be given the exalted status of high court and supreme court judges.  In fact finding answers to these three questions- is the information sought exempted from disclosure under Sec 8 or 9 of the RTI Act?; if not, why has the complete information not been provided? Are the reason(s) for not providing the complete information, within the prescribed time, legally valid? is much simpler than the task of even a munsif! Certain case studies are given below to illustrate how the KSIC is subverting the law.

3.      The KSIC has through its letter No 6009/SIC-Gen/2007 dated 05 Oct 2007, addressed to the

RDO, Palakkad, directed the Public Information Officer there NOT to accept petitions in future. This is in clear volation of Sec 5 of the RTI Act. Sec 5(2) of the Act is reproduced below:

‘...every public authority shall designate an officer, within one hundred days of the enactment of this Act, at each sub-divisional level or other sub-district level as a Central Assistant Public Information Officer or a State Assistant Public Information Officer, as the case may be, to receive the applications for information or appeals under this Act for forwarding the same forthwith to the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or senior officer specified under sub-section (1) of section 19 or the Central Information Commission or the State Information Commission, as the case may be.‘

4.      The order of the KSIC in AP 452/2007/SIC dated 21 Dec 2007 is also in gross violation of

law and justice because they are based on wrong interpretation of the law. The Commission has in para 4(ii) of the order rightly quoted the provisions of Right to Information (Regulation of Fee and Cost) Rules, 2006 but misleadingly made a statement that ’While demanding the fee under Rule 4 the Public Information Officer can require the applicant to make the payment in any one of the modes prescribed under sub rule 3 of Rule 4‘ and interpreted it in favour of the PIO by giving him/her the choice of mode of accepting payment rather than accepting the rule that gives the choice to the applicant. That such choice was not available to the PIO at the time the payment was made in the instant case or on the date of the order is evident from the fact that the Right to Information (Regulation of Fee and Cost) Rules, 2006 was amended on 22/12/2007 (one day after the Commission‘s order was issued) through Kerala Gazette (Extraordinary) No 2290 restricting the mode of payment to public authorities other than government departments to only two modes- cash or demand draft/banker’s cheque/pay order.

5.      The order of the KSIC in AP 1041(2) /2008/SIC strikes at the very root of the RTI Act

making it totally infructuous by letting public authorities get away with the plea that the requested information was just not available with them, without giving any legally valid reasons! In the instant case it is unbelievable that the minutes of a meeting convened by the Chief Minister, and that too in a matter as important as the anti-Coca Cola struggle at Plachimada which has been begging for a solution for the last 7 years, is not available in his office.

6.      I had approached the Governor of Kerala to remove the CIC, KSIC under Sec 17(3)(d) of the

RTI Act. But it was merely sent to the Chief Minister of Kerala on behalf of whom, later, the General Admn (Co-ordination) Dept wrote to say that there was no reason that merited the removal. Later a mass petition was filed under the banner of Save Right to Information Campaign which was also just sent to the CM, Kerala!

7.      The failures of the fora/commissions set up under the Consumer Protection Act are so

gross that one tends to doubt if the law is really Consumer Protection Act or Consumer Persecution Act. While the Kerala State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission did issue a notice dated 10/10/08, for hearing in IA 568/08 (application for condonation of delay) in Appeal No FA 210/08, in its order dated 9/7/2009 the Commission had stated that the application for condonation of delay has not been submitted! The gist of the original complaint made to the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Palakkad consisted of three parts:

(i)     declaring certain trains as superfast and charging the  passengers/ consumers Superfast Charges without providing commensurate speedy travel.

(ii)   inflated distance being shown on the ticket and fares being collected on the inflated distance, that is on the Konkan route the distance is inflated by 40% on the Roha-Thokur sector it is the inflated distnce that is shown on the ticket an charged for and

(iii) levying charges for facilities NOT used by the passengers in that, under the Tatkal scheme, a passenger was required to buy tickets from the starting station of the train to its destination station even when the passenger needed to travel only between wayside stations. For example if one was to avail Tatkal facility to travel by train from Palakkad to Chennai in a train originating at Thiruvananthapuram and going to Guwahati, one had to buy a ticket from Thiruvananthapuram to Guwahati, apart, of course, from paying the prescribed Tatkal charges. (This has been rectified by the new Railway Minister recently.)

After 8 months, the Forum dismissed the complaint while holding the grievances to be genuine, stating that it was under the jurisdiction of the Railway Rates Tribunal (RRT) under Sec 38 of the Indian Railway Act (IRA). Left with no option, I had filed the complaint with the RRT, Chennai and very promptly they had replied that it was not under their jurisdiction under Sec 37 of the IRA! It was thereafter I had approached the KSCDRC with the appeal and the Interim Appeal to condone the delay and against which I had received the patently illegal order stating blatant lies! I had then complained the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission specifically stating that I was ‘NOT filing any appeal against the orders of the KSCDRC but only placing the fact of the fraud being perpetuated by them on record for their information and necessary action which I believed was my responsibility as a sensible citizen’. But the reply I received from the NCDRC was a direction to file a revision petition!

8.      The state of affairs of the Kerala State Human Rights Commission, Kerala State

Women’s Commission and similar quasi judicial organizations are no better. Sometime back it was reported in the media that the then president of the KSHRC used to hold sittings at Guruvayur on the 1^st of every Malayalam month! Considering that such sittings are not even arranged at the various district headquarters so regularly it doesn’t require anything more than common sense to understand what was the nature of these sittings at the pilgrim town. As per another report the audit authorities had indicted the Women’s Commission for gross misuse of public money.

9.      If this the state of affairs of the quasi judicial organizations which have been set up with

limited jurisdiction and simple procedures to not only take the load off the courts but also to deliver easy and fast justice then how does a citizen seek remedy for the gross delinquency of the administration? It would be pertinent to narrate here two such serious cases of delinquency.

10.  I had inspected, under the provisions of the Right to Information Act, the attendance registers

maintained at the District Collector’s office and found to my horror that all the employees had marked their attendance on hartal days. Well, not only on hartal days but also on a day when there was siege of the Collectorate by a political party. I was told that the siege was lifted at 3 pm and the employees had all entered their offices and with the special permission of the District Collector marked their attendance. But they could neither produce the order of the DC nor the authority under which the DC could permit such marking of attendance by employees who had not actually attended the office. The KSIC just glossed over the issue in its order stating that all information sought has been reasonably provided!

11.  Secondly, I had enquired about the action taken by the various authorities on complaints

received by them about illegal quarrying in various parts of the district. It was shocking to learn that the RDO had passed the buck to the Mining and Geology Dept who in turn had passed it on to the police and who finally claimed not to have received any complaints from anybody other than me! At one point of time the office RDO refused to accept a letter addressed to the RDO without getting his approval! A complaint to his effect to the District Collector was sent by him to the Kerala State Information Commission who obviously returned it to him stating that it had to be dealt with under the RTI Act!

12.  I had read a report in the media that the High Court had once remarked that even God cannot

save this country. I have to fully subscribe to that view but I also realize that those who understand that things have to change have a responsibility to work for that change. This letter is a deliberate effort in that direction. The only other option available to me is to pray that the naxalites and maoists chose their targets correctly whenever they decide to strike because the other options- approaching the police or the judiciary- is beyond the pale of ordinary mortals in this country. It is pertinent to recall that as per the survey results of Transparency International the police and judiciary are the most corrupt institutions in this country which in turn is one of the most corrupt in the whole world.

Yours truly,

(P M Ravindran)

'The highest office in our democracy is the office of citizen; this is not only a platitude, it must translate into reality'.

'Judicial system has not been able to meet even the modest expectations of the society.  Its delays and costs are frustrating, its processes slow and uncertain.  People are pushed to seek recourse to extra-legal methods for relief.  Trial system both on the civil and criminal side has utterly broken down. Thus we have arrived at a situation in the judicial administration where courts are deemed to exist for judges and lawyers and not for the public seeking justice'.

- Report Of The National Commission To Review The Working Of The Constitution