Consumer groups up in arms against TS govt

Row over headless CDRC

Hyderabad: The failure of the state government in appointing president of the Telangana State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (CDRC) seems to be heading towards a major controversy and the consumer activists are gearing up for state wide demonstrations from October 2 and are even likely to resort to fast unto death.

The delay in appointing the president of the commission has resulted in piling up of 1632 cases as on August 31 and about 30 to 40 cases are added every day. The CDRC head is to be appointed by the State government with recommendation from the High Court. Other two members are appointed after issuing notification.

But the state government continues to sit over the issue. Soon after the commission was divided after the bifurcation of the state, the Telangana government issued a GO MS No.9, Dt 15.10.2014 constituting the Telangana State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission.

The High Court had recommended the name of retired Justice Chandra Kumar. Confirming this, Justice Kumar told The Hans India that his name was recommended in January but the government had informed the court that it was not acceptable to it.

He, however, refused to make any further comment. Sources said that the state government had rejected the name of Justice Chandra Kumar because he was critical of government policies on issues like farmers suicides and shifting of State Secretariat etc.

According to Vemula Gouri Sankara Rao, advocate and chairman of the Confederation of All-Telangana Consumer Organisations, there are 12 consumer forums in the state but only four of them (Hyderabad 2 and 3, Ranga Reddy and Medak) have presidents. In all other districts, the additional district judges are attending to the pending cases as and when they get some time from the regular work at the district courts.

This has resulted in a number of complaints against builders, insurance companies, banks, medical cases, etc piling up. A consumer activist N Srinivas of Karimnagar filed a PIL in February. The High Court had ordered the government to appoint the president within a month. But the government did not act.

Following this, a contempt case No.509/2015 was filed by Srinivas, which was later cancelled following the personal appearance and undertaking given by the Consumer Affairs Secretary, on 12.06.2015 and the government gave six weeks time for compliance. But the government has not yet kept its undertaking.

According to Srinivas, it now appears that the High Court had closed the case a few days back. Srinivas said the government’s inaction had cascading effect on the district units as well.

By:V Ramu Sarma