LAHORE, April 30: The District Consumer Court of Lahore heard the first-ever case on Monday since its inception on Feb 27 last.

A sales manager, representative of a known tyre manufacturing company, appeared before the court headed by district and sessions judge Syed Maroof Ahmed Ali in response to a complaint filed by advocate Ikramul Haq against the firm.

The manager was asked to submit by May 10 a written reply to the complaint about the sale of a poor quality tyre to the complainant.

Under the Consumer Protection Act 2005 governing the court, the defence can be given only 15 days for submission of his/her reply.

The law authorizes the court to hear cases against the sale of substandard or defective consumer goods and flaws in the provision of any professional service like legal, medical, educational, etc.

Under section 28 of the act, a complainant is required to submit his/her plaint on a plain paper (in English or Urdu) to the district coordination officer affixing with it the purchase receipt, laboratory test report (if required) or copy of the contract, whatever the case may be.

After preliminary inquiry, the DCO sends the complaint to the consumer court which does not require any court fee.

Court registrar Asif Nazeer says so far five cases have been referred to the court. One of them was returned to the complainant for not meeting legal requirements, three were sent to the Consumer Protection Council for seeking legal advice while the fifth one was taken up today (April 30).

District industries officer Anwar Qazi, the focal person appointed by DCO Muhammad Ijaz to handle the complaints, says the cases (filed so far) pertained to overcharging by filling stations, sale of substandard lubricants and conversion of used computer monitors into TV sets.

He claims that the notices recently issued by the DCO to various showroom owners for overcharging their consumers have worked wonders and now these people are avoiding to include the “own” amount at least into their quotations.

Mohsin Raza Bhatti, president of a consumers’ protection body called Community Solidarity System, is to file next week a case against a food company for playing with the health of consumers by selling ordinary jam by labeling it as sugar free.

Mr Bhatti has got contents of the jam analyzed from a known laboratory to present it as evidence in the court.

He alleges that expired juices are being sold at big stores with impunity. He claims that he had complained with the city district government’s food department against one such store located on Shaukat Ali Road, which was raided and a huge quantity of expired juices was impounded from there.

“The store owner had purchased the juice at a rate of Rs45 per litre and was selling it for Rs110 per litre.”

The expiry date on some other edible items had been changed by the owner on his own, he said.

He appealed to the consumers to be vigilant against such malpractices while making their purchases otherwise they would have to blame themselves for falling victims to meanness of traders.

The Punjab government has so far established 11 consumer courts in the province - at Lahore, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Sialkot, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Multan, Bahawalpur, Sahiwal, Sargodha and Dera Ghazi Khan. The Lahore court will also hear cases from Sheikhupura, Nankana Sahib and Kasur districts.

So far 13-member staff has been provided to the court but Mr Nazeer says that the government has been requested to hire more people to improve its record-keeping and other services like provision of copies (of cases and verdicts, etc.).