The basic features of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986

-Puneet Chaturvedi, Advocate

The Constitution of India, which is divided into different parts, has two very important parts . Part III Fundamental Rights and Part IV Directive Principles of State Policy. These two parts denote two important features of our constitution. The former denotes the existing and enforceable legal rights and the latter denotes the targeted social and economic goals which our founding fathers desired, our successive  governments to achieve.

That in pursuance of achieving one such goal, Consumer Protection Act came into force in the year 1986. That as per the preamble of the Act it was brought to provide for the better protection of the interests of consumers and for settlement of consumers’ disputes. Although there were remedies in other laws like Contract Act, Sales of Goods Act, Torts, IPC and procedure prescribed in C.P.C. and Cr.P.C., the purpose o f enactment of Consumer Protection Act, 1986 was to provide specialized redressal to the consumer grievances.

That the Act provides for the Central Consumer Protection Council, State Consumer Protection Council and three tiers of the Consumer Redressal Authorities i.e. District Consumer Forum, State Consumer Commission and the National Consumer Commission. The Councils were assigned with the job to promote and protect interest of the consumers at the Central and State levels and the redressal authorities  were established to provide speedy and simple remedy to consumer disputes through a quasi-judicial machinery.Read More »