Insufficient redressal mechanism and insufficient efforts by the government to create awareness have made consumer protection movement a failure. Majority of the people don’t know whom to approach and how to approach in case of violation of consumer protection laws. It is not the lack of education for such a pathetic situation but it is lack of education on consumer rights, which has worked as an impediment in taking the law to large section of the people. Though the law is in existence for nearly 28 years but only a very low per cent of the population is aware of the rights. From government side there is hardly any sincere effort to propagate the rights of a consumer, though there are consumer forums in all the states. Another reason for such low awareness is the consumer apathy as nobody wants to take initiatives to fight the malady out. The Consumers Protection Act, a fine piece of legislation has been able to provide adequate remedy to consumers, who prior to its enactment in 1986, were exploited to the hilt by goods and service providers. Sale of defective and of inferior quality goods and those not conforming to the projected quality was quite rampant. Similarly service providers like insurance companies would more often than not fleece the consumers by not indemnifying them when loss was suffered by them. Deficiency in service and unfair trade practice was order of the day. In this scenario civil law did provide the remedy by way of civil suit but that was quite cumbersome, expensive and above all time consuming. So people would not mostly avail of the remedy. In this scenario need of affordable, simple and effective legislation was badly felt. Ultimately the legislators had to rise to the occasion and enact a law for better protection of interests of consumers. Thus the Consumer Protection Act was enacted in 1986. It extends to the whole of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir. After one year, the State Act came to be passed by the State Legislature known as The J and K Consumer Protection Act 1987. It’s time that we take full benefit of this special social legislation and end the exploitation of sellers of goods and service providers so that we usher in a new dawn of better services and fair trade practices. Jago Grahak Jago.
