LAHORE, Oct 22: The chief minister has approved the creation of consumer courts initially in 11 districts on Nov 1, according to senior government officers. Courts are required to be established under the Punjab Consumer Protection Act enacted by the Punjab Assembly early this year to provide for protection and promotion of the rights and interests of the consumers and speedy redress of their complaints.

The officials informed Dawn on Saturday that the chief minister had approved the summary which was forwarded to him, allowing the establishment of courts initially in all defunct divisional headquarters like Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan and Rawalpindi and three industrial cities — Sialkot, Sahiwal and Gujrat.

They said the government would monitor working and efficacy of courts and then establish more of those in all other districts by February this year.

The decision by the chief minister is against the recommendations of the law department, which had proposed that such courts should be established in every district to provide an opportunity to all people in the province to seek justice with regard to prices and quality of the services and goods they purchase.

The law department had given its opinion on the subject after the industries department put a summary, seeking the establishment of initially 11 courts in the province. The industries department wanted such courts in the eight defunct divisional quarters like Lahore and Rawalpindi, and three industrial cities — Sahiwal, Sialkot and Gujrat.

Courts are the part of the Asian Development Bank’s access to justice programme for which it is giving an assistance of $350 million. And senior officers had been fearing that a delay in their establishment would make the ADB stop the assistance.

According to the act, a consumer court shall consist of a district judge to be appointed by the government in consultation with the Lahore High Court.

A court can direct a defendant to remove defect from the products in question, replace those with newer ones of similar description, return to the claimant the price, besides paying reasonable compensation to the consumer for any loss he had suffered owing to the negligence of the defendant, awarding damages where appropriate, recalling the product from trade or commerce, confiscating or destroying the defective product and stop providing defective or faulty service until it achieves the required standard.

It can award imprisonment which may extend to two years or fine, which may be enhanced to Rs100,000, or both, in addition to damages or compensation as may be determined by it.

A false claim would lead to fine not exceeding Rs10,000.