Mr S Pushpavanam, who is the secretary of a Tiruchi-based consumer group called Consumer Protection Council, was abused, threatened and manhandled by a group of advocates inside the South Chennai Consumer Forum on April 1, even as he waited for his case to be heard. What irritated the lawyers was that a lowly consumer had occupied a seat in the front row, reserved for them! Strangely, even the president of the forum refused to intervene. Eventually Pushpavanam had to vacate the seat and later when he came out of the forum, he was threatened and manhandled by the lawyers.

The consumer activist has now written to the presidents of the consumer courts at the district, state and the national level, urging them to issue suitable directions to the bar associations to ensure that lawyers desisted from behaving in such unruly manner.

For a long time now, consumers and consumer groups have been expressing strong reservations about the presence of lawyers in consumer courts, on the ground that they invariably introduce complicated questions of law in the proceedings, thereby not only delaying the adjudication process, but also making it difficult for a consumer to even understand what is happening.

So much so that many consumers prefer to hire a lawyer and several studies have revealed that this makes the entire process of consumer justice terribly expensive. Then there are also other issues such as the adjournments that the layers seek, thereby slowing down the process of adjudication.

Consumer courts are meant for consumers to fight for their rights. However, if you visit some of the consumer courts in the country, you will be surprised at the second class treatment meted out to them. Lawyers occupy all the front benches, they even have an exclusive chamber in many of the consumer courts, but the poor consumer has no such facility.

When the Consumer Protection Act was being amended in 2003, the union ministry of consumer affairs tried to restrict the presence of lawyers in these courts through an amending clause, but could not succeed. It was deleted while before the Parliament. The last round, lawyers may have won, but this time at least (the law is being amended now) consumers should exert pressure on the ministries of law and consumer affairs to bring back that amendment. But for that to happen, at least a thousand consumers should write to the ministry with this demand.