Another Consumer Forum bench starts work

Chandigarh, December 10
Punjab Food, Civil & Consumer Affairs and Information Technology Minister Adaish Partap Singh Kairon today dedicated the third bench of the Punjab State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission to the public.

Presiding over a function organised in commission’s office here, Kairon said the commission played an important role in providing speedy justice to the consumers betrayed by the companies as in some cases.

He said though the amount involved was usually not so big, it was the matter of hurting of their sentiments and a feeling of denied justice. He pointed out that speedy justice for consumers was the need of hour as generally in these cases complainants did not pursue their cases.

The purpose of setting up of the third bench was to cut short the pendency of consumers’ cases at the state level to two months.

The minister said Punjab was the only state in North India to have three benches at the state commission.

Speaking on the occasion, Justice SN Aggarwal (retd), president, Punjab State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, said not only the backlog of cases, which were pending since 1999, had been cleared but also the cases filed up to 31.12.2006 had been finalised.

He said the annual non-plan budget of the commission was Rs 4.59 crore which had been enhanced to Rs 11.02 crore for the financial year 2011-12. Similarly, there had been an increase in the plan budget, which was Rs 32.25 lakh during 2007-08, had now been enhanced to Rs 77.13 lakh.