Consumer Dispute Tribunal
Supreme Court directs Centre, states to fill up vacant positions in consumer dispute bodies in eight weeks
New Delhi/IBNS: The Supreme Court has slammed the states for not filling up the vacancies in their consumer dispute redressal panels and directed to appoint officials to the vacant posts within eight weeks, according to media reports.
The Supreme Court gave the directions after taking suo motu cognizance of pending vacancies in district and state redressal commissions across India.
The apex court also criticised the Centre on the vacancies in the national consumer tribunal.
"Don't dash the hopes of people," the central government was told, reported NDTV.
"You raise (their) hopes that they will get (the) redressal but then you don't fulfil those. If you are asking (the) states to fill up vacancies then you also need to do that. You need to have requisite number of people to deal with the cases," the top court told the central government, it added.
The court rebuked the states, including Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Jharkhand, over their slack approach.
"The way states are acting is unacceptable. You do not want citizens to get redressal," the court said, according to the report.
Castigating the Bihar government, the court said, "Some 'mahurat' (auspicious moment)' has to be set for you to take steps to fill up the vacancies?"
The top court ordered the state governments to set up selection committees within four weeks, and advertise all existing and potential vacancies within two weeks.
"If states don't notify rules within two weeks, model rule by centre will automatically apply," the court has said.
The bench of Justices SK Kaul and Hemant Gupta also called the situation "surprising".
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