Consumer Court
Encyclopedia
Consumer Court is the name given to special purpose courts, mainly in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, that deal with cases regarding consumer disputes and grievances. These are judiciary set ups by the government to protect the consumer rights. Their main function is to maintain the fair practices by the sellers towards consumers.

Different types of Consumer Courts

  1. A nation
    Nation
    A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...

    al level court works for the whole country and deals with amount more than 1 crore
    Crore
    A crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....

    .
  2. A state level court works at the state level with case valuing less than Rs.1 crore.
  3. A district
    District
    Districts are a type of administrative division, in some countries managed by a local government. They vary greatly in size, spanning entire regions or counties, several municipalities, or subdivisions of municipalities.-Austria:...

     level court works at the district level with cases valuing up to Rs.20 lac
    Lac
    Lac is the scarlet resinous secretion of a number of species of insects, namely some of the species of the genera Metatachardia, Laccifer, Tachordiella, Austrotacharidia, Afrotachardina, and Tachardina of the superfamily Coccoidea, of which the most commonly cultivated species is Kerria lacca.The...

    s.

Consumer movement

In India, the consumer movement as a social force originated with the necessity of protecting and promoting the interests of consumers against unethical and unfair trade practices. Rampant food shortages, hoarding, black marketing, adulteration of food and edible oil gave birth to the consumer movement in an organized form in the 1960s.

The movement succeeded in bringing pressure.A major step was taken in 1986 by the Indian government was the enactment of the Consumer Protection Act 1986 (COPRA).

In India the main function/role of consumer court is to provide some extra privilege to the consumers and to maintain the fair practice by the seller or the service provider towards the consumer. Submitting complaint is very simple and consumer has no need to hire any lawyer. The government of India has made approaching a consumer court very simple and extremely cheap as you can represent yourself without having to hire a lawyer and the court fee is just Rs100 which is about US$2.

Consumer courts are now forcing the consumers to file case files in local language instead of English. Previously the consumer had choice to file his case either in English or the local language.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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