Imtiaz Ali Shah
The Sindh Consumer Protection Act 2014 (hereinafter referred to as ‘Act’) was passed by the Provincial Assembly of Sindh on 20th February 2015 and assented by the Governor of Sindh on 16th March 2015. It is social welfare legislation. The purpose of the enactment is to make certain that the consumers will get speedy and expeditious justice against the manufacturing company or service provider, who exploits them by unfair trade practices. It provides and protects the rights and interests of consumers in the Province of Sindh. In one way or another, the consumers purchase goods and hire services, and they had no specific forum to redress their grievances against the defective products or faulty services; consequently this legislation come into force to reduce this gap. However, this piece of legislation is not exhaustive, and its scope is minimal. According to the decisions of Superior Courts of Pakistan, the Consumer court has no jurisdiction to decide the cases of Electricity, Sui Gas, Banking, Telecommunication, Insurance, Development facilities of Housing Schemes, medical negligence/malpractice. These are the essential services, and the consumers cannot seek their remedy against the faulty services provided concerning the above faculties. Besides, the Court also has no power to pass an order in the form of a Mandatory or Temporary injunction. A bare study of the Act reflects that there is no specific provision that empowers the Court to frame the issues. Civil courts frame the issues out of pleadings of the parties for just and better adjudication of the case on each point. There is a Latin maxim, “Expressio Unius est exclusion alterius,” which means when one or more things of a class are expressly mentioned, others of the same type are excluded. In the case of Muhammad Aslam, the Islamabad High Court has emphasized that government should make amendments in consumer law to enable the courts to frame issues and give issue-wise findings on such material available before it. Above and beyond, the Civil Procedure Code is not stricto sensu applicable to Act. There is no denying that the Act established a special court to resolve the dispute arising between Consumer and Manufacture / Service provider. Besides, the Act contains provisions of substantive and procedural law. The provisions of the Civil Procedure Code apply to the Act to the extent of contents mentioned in sub-section 3 of section 31 of the Act. However, the Consumer Court is not empowered by the legislature to recourse to the essential provisions mentioned in the CPC. The Court is helpless when a claim is filed before it, which is not maintainable; neither Court has the power to return the claim, reject it, or dismiss it in limine. The Court has to follow the procedure mentioned in the Act, and at the end, if it finds that the claim is frivolous or vexatious, it can dismiss it. The Act says that the manufacturer or trade shall display prices at the business place, and receipt to be issued to the purchaser. Further, it says that return and refund policy shall be disclosed to the consumers, and false, deceptive, or misleading representation shall not be made. There is also a prohibition on bait advertisement. Section 33 of the Act says that where a manufacturer fails to perform or in any way infringes the liability as highlighted above, he shall be punished with imprisonment or fine, or both. Nonetheless, no provision in the Act empowers the Consumer Court to entertain a criminal complaint and award the punishments to the manufacturer or service provider, thus rendering these penal provisions useless and ineffective. According to the Act, the consumers have two forums to get a panacea for their grievances. Section 25 says that the Government Shall set up a Consumer Protection Council in all districts to report to the Provincial Consumer Protection Council. Numerous functions have been assigned to the Councils, but these are entirely inactive and dead. Moreover, Section 26 enables the Consumer Courts to entertain claims, but the consumers have to follow pre-action protocols in the form of issuance of notice before filing a claim, which creates hurdles for the consumers, and it is also a time taking process. Usually, Civil Courts pass judgment followed by a decree. When Judgment-Debtor fails to comply with the court decree, the decree-holder files an execution application to enforce the decree. Order XXI of the Civil Procedure Code deals with the execution of decrees and order and provides a detailed procedure. The Consumer Court has the power to pass an order under section 32 on a claim, if after the proceedings conducted under this Act, the Court is satisfied that the products complained against suffering from any of the defects specified in the claim or any allegation contained in the claim about the service provided are true. However, the astonishing fact is that the Act has not defined any mode for executing an order passed under the provision mentioned above. Moreover, clause k section 2 of the Act says that government shall establish the laboratory or organization, which shall be maintained, financed, aided, or recognized by the government for carrying out analysis or test of any goods with a view to determine whether such goods suffer from any defect. But this is all just on paper, and the government has failed to establish new laboratories in Sindh which can examine different sorts of goods relating to consumer law. The Sindh government has taken a positive step to legislate the consumer law, which is appreciable. However, the government should take serious efforts to introduce necessary amendments to the law to protect consumers’ rights and interests. The courts should be empowered to entertain criminal complaints and adopt the procedure provided for summary trials. The essential provisions of the CPC may be incorporated in the Act. Besides, there is a need to make the scope of this Act broader by eliminating the lacunas, as discussed above, so that Courts can exercise their powers without any hurdles and provide speedy redress of consumer complaints.
