Recently, the Peshawar High Court nominated seven district and sessions judges for their appointments as judges of consumer courts by the provincial government in the divisional headquarters of the province. Presently, these judges have been posted as officers on special duty at the high court and they now await the notification by the provincial government, which is expected in a few days, following which they will run exclusive consumer courts.

Till now district and sessions judges (DSJs) have been performing additional duty in consumer courts in the province. Owing to the growing number of cases filed before the DSJs, the high court had last year recommended to the provincial government to appoint judges exclusively for consumer courts. The then high court chief justice Dost Mohammad Khan had observed that as consumer rights protection was an important issue, therefore, there should be exclusive courts for dealing with it. A few months ago the provincial government had approved a summary for seven exclusive consumer courts on divisional headquarters level.

Consumer rights is a provincial subject under the Constitution of Pakistan, therefore, only the provinces are empowered to legislate on this issue. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had taken lead from the other three provinces when it had enacted the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (then NWFP) Consumer Protection Act in 1997. The law was passed by the provincial assembly on Nov 11, 1997. The then governor assented to the bill on Nov 26, 1997.

The first consumer protection law in Pakistan was Islamabad Consumer Protection Act, 1995, which was enacted by the federal government. Following Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Balochistan Consumer Protection Act, 2003 and the Punjab Consumer Protection Act, 2005 were enacted. Presently, only Sindh is without any consumer protection law.

In Jan 2005, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly passed another bill, enacting the NWFP Consumer Protection (Amendment) Act, 2005, through which drastic changes were made in the KP Consumer Protection Act (CPA) 1997. One of the important amendments was related to the consumer courts. Initially the law empowered an authority to be presided over by the district magistrate to look into the complaints of consumers. Following the 2005 amendments that authority was replaced with consumer court in each of the districts to be presided over by the concerned district and sessions judge.

The provincial home and tribal affairs department had issued a notification on June 7, 2005, in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 11-A of the CPA. The government announced the establishment of the consumer court in each district of the province, which has to be presided over by the concerned district and sessions judge.

The DSJs finally started their additional functions as consumer courts in 2010. The then high court chief justice Ejaz Afzal Khan had inaugurated the functioning of first such court in the province at Haripur.

The law defines wide ranging things as ‘unfair practices’ including hoarding, black-marketing, adulteration, selling of expired drugs, food items and commodities unfit for human consumption, or charging for the goods and services in excess of the price fixed, etc. If a person is found guilty of an offence under this Act he could be punished with imprisonment which may extend to two years, or with fine up to Rs 50,000, or with both and shall also be liable to provide compensation relief as may be determined by the court.

The law prohibits false advertisement, etc, stating that “no company, firm or person shall advertise in any manner not authorised by law for the sale or hiring of goods or services or any property, movable or immovable, or solicit deposits for repayment at higher rates of profit or interest and thereby causes loss to any consumer, whether financial or otherwise.”

Furthermore, the Act has made it mandatory on the manufacturer to publish or mark on every packet or container the maximum retail price, the nature, standard or type and other specifications of the goods therein; the weight, size or volume and date of manufacture and expiry where appropriate. It is added that if any goods are not sold in packed form or in container, it shall be sufficient that the required information is exhibited conspicuously in the shop where the sale is being made.

“This law is of immense importance and it is necessary to fully implement it especially to activate the consumer protection councils on provincial and district level as it have several important functions to perform,” said an advocate of the Supreme Court, Shahnawaz Khan, who has pleaded several complaints under the Act. He said that the setting up of exclusive consumer courts would help in early disposal of complaints as presently the DSJ had to perform his day-to-day administrative and judicial functions and assigning him additional responsibility had overburdened the courts.

Other experts believe that there should be a ministry for consumer protection on provincial level which should examine the implementation of law as well as start awareness drive among the people so that more and more people could approach the consumer courts. They believe that exclusive courts for the rights of consumers would help in checking unethical practices by manufacturers as well as service providers in different fields.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2014