It took Muhammad Irfan, a local businessman, who moved Lahore Consumer Court, almost two years to get justice on his complaint against a local marriage hall management that had charged the agreed amount but failed to supply uninterrupted electricity at the event.

"Almost a year ago the court ordered the banquet hall management to pay up Rs100,000 to the complainant as compensation. The amount has not been paid till date," Irfan tells TNS. He appreciates the existence of consumer courts but calls for a better mechanism to implement the judgements.

The Punjab government enacted the Punjab Consumer Protection Act (PCPA) in 2005 and implemented it by establishing the District Consumer Courts and District Consumer Protection Councils, under the administration of the Directorate of Provincial Consumer Protection Council. The legislation aims to defend and safeguard rights of the consumers against substandard products, faulty services, misleading representation and advertisement. It is a complaint-driven system, providing judicial, quasi-judicial and alternate dispute resolution (ADR), which means pre-trial settlement mechanism. The PCPA covers defined products and services.

Soon, 11 consumer courts and councils were set up in the Punjab. The courts deal with the petitions and complaints on consumers’ requests while the district level councils recommend reforms; create awareness (among the consumers) against marketing of products which are hazardous to life and property. They also provide information and access to information regarding products and services available in the district to consumers; assist in the exchange of information; and also aid the council in removing defective products and services from the market.

The councils also deal with a seller who does not issue receipt or display details of a product, or he overcharges.

However, 10 years on, these courts and councils are still struggling with budgetary and structural issues. For the past few months, the allocated budget, which is around Rs65 million, has not been released, depriving as many as 360 contractual employees in different grades, of their salaries. The setup is still dependent on the Punjab government’s department of Industry and has not been made independent in matters relating to consumers.

It is worth mentioning here that the consumer courts and councils have contributed handsome amounts in the form of penalties to the provincial exchequers. According to the Punjab Consumer Protection Councils, Rs20 million were deposited in the provincial exchequer by way of fines in the past seven years.

According to a senior official of the Punjab Consumer Protection Council (PCPC), "For the past seven years, at least 17 main amendments to refine the law has been lying pending with the relevant authorities." These amendments are regarding improvising the complaint mechanism, enhancing the role of the council and empowering the courts to better implement their judgments.

The law was passed in 2005 when the PML-Q was in power. Some people see lack of political will on the part of the PML-N in strengthening the law. However, Naseem Sadiq, Secretary, Industry, Punjab, the department that pedals the courts, says the government has recently done some work to improvise and enhance the number of courts in six districts. "Recent budget blockade was due to those discussions and also because some of the contractual employees of the court had moved the Lahore High Court for regularisation of their services."

As per the data compiled by Lahore’s Consumer Court, between March 2007 and July 2015, as many as 5,425 cases were taken up in the city. There is a gradual increase in the number of cases filed every year. Out of these cases, 2,872 have been decided in favour of the consumers and 2,293 in support of the respondents (accused) while 1,952 have been disposed of on technical grounds.

The District Consumer Councils (DCCs) in the11 districts of Punjab have accommodated 16,309 applications with the disposal ratio of 80 percent, while hefty fines were also imposed.

Last month, Lahore’s Consumer Court also heavily fined a well-known child specialist for his negligence in treating a three-month-old. The court slapped Rs44 million as penalty on the doctor for not diagnosing the ailment in the first two months of the baby’s life that had resulted in complications. The judgment, surprising many, came after almost eight years of both parties seriously contesting the case.

In another case in 2010, on a complaint of faulty installation of a vehicle tracking system in a private car, the court decided that the tracker company would pay Rs950,000 as penalty, Rs5,600 as annual charge and Rs30,000 as compensation against "mental torture." The claim totals Rs1.1 million (approx.).

Saeed Akhtar Ansari, a former director at the Directorate of Provincial Consumer Protection Council, Punjab, says government’s lack of interest in consumer mechanism is a major issue. "Government can play a pivotal role by expanding the system throughout the country; consumer education should be included in curriculum/ syllabus.

"The government of Punjab is also faced with a lack of resources. We need to empower these courts and councils because consumer satisfaction can only be achieved by expanding the existing system throughout the province up to tehsil level."

Ansari calls for an immediate approval of amendments in consumer related laws and also creating a separate ministry or division for uniformity in consumer issues, as is practised in the neighbouring India.

Following the recent raids on different food outlets in Lahore by the newly activated Punjab Food Authority (PFA), and the fining and sealing of restaurants for substandard food and meat, the Punjab government has said it would strengthen the Authority with dedicated, separate courts to be established in order to hear the cases pertaining to food hygiene and substandard meat.

Meanwhile, the consumer courts have been dealing with complaints about substandard food services. The new courts would be authorised to sentence the culprits from one month to life imprisonment.

In Pakistan, a debate on consumer rights legislation began in the parliament way back in 1994. As a consequence of this, firstly, Islamabad Consumer Protection Act was promulgated in 1995. The government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (then NWFP) and Balochistan passed the Consumers’ Protection Act in 1997 and 2003 respectively but remained unable to establish a mechanism for consumer protection. Last year, the KP government set up consumer courts that have still to start functioning properly.

When the Punjab government introduced the law in 2005, many had doubts as to its success. The Punjab law also called for establishing consumer protection councils in order to raise public awareness regarding the consumer rights and courts to address the complaints. The plan was for every district in the Punjab to have its own council and court but so far they are only in 11 districts. There are plans to set up six more courts in Layyah, Bahawalnagar, Mandi Bahauddin, Bhakkar, Mianwali and Rahim Yar Khan, the official says.

The sitting Punjab government ordered a third-party evaluation report (a copy of which is available with TNS) which declared that most people had learnt about consumer courts from newspapers and friends. The report further suggested that such consumer courts must be established and extended to other districts.