HYDERABAD: ‘The consumer is the king’ is an underlining fact in promoting consumer rights but often such facts are not honoured by several companies despite its guilt being proved in the court of law for violating rules.
A substantial number of judgments issued by the consumer disputes redressal forums are not being implemented by the companies against whom a complaint is filed. While the problem is to do with the ‘poor availability of police enforcement’, according to officials, a district redressal forum sent a person to prison for failing to implement its order.
The case involves a realtor, J Sunil Sachdev of Gharonda builders and developers, who promised the complainant to complete construction of a flat within ten months after paying the prescribed amount to complete the sale deed. However, even after two years, the promises were not kept.
And, the complainant in February 2015, approached the consumer forum for relief. In September 2015, the forum directed the realtor to pay a sum of Rs 2.5 lakh towards compensation and complete the construction work within one month. But, the realtor did not heed to the order of the judgment despite the complainant writing several letters.
In February 2016, the complainant filed an execution affidavit (EA) stating that the order was not honoured by the realtor. The district forum ordered for judicial custody of Sachdev on three separate instances for failing to implement the order. The latest one was issued on July 25 for a period of thirteen days.
Arrest under Section 27 of Consumer Protection Act, 1986
Nimma Narayana, president of Hyderabad district consumer redressal forum - 3 who issued the imprisonment order said, “Ample time was given to Sachdev to implement the forum order from 2015 but until now there has been no progress.”
It is learnt that the realtor was constantly skipping forum proceedings and had several consumer complaints against him in other district forums.
“We understand that he managed the police to skip the forum proceedings. For this reason, we even wrote a letter to the commissioner of police to act against the CI and finally he was presented and we sentenced him to prison,” Narayana added.
The arrest was made as per section 27 of the consumer protection Act, 1986 which penalises a person omitting to comply with district forum that can carry a punishment up to three years, he added.