Lawyers beware. An ongoing debate on whether lawyers should come under the purview of the Consumer Protection Act of 1986 has now reached the Supreme Court. Recently, the apex court of the country decided to hear a petition seeking a stay on an order by the National Consumer Redressal Commission that brings lawyers within the ambit of the Consumer Protection Act.

In its judgment dated August 6, 2007, in the case of D.K. Gandhi vs M. Mathias, the National Consumer Redressal Commission made it clear that all professionals, including lawyers, should come under the ambit of the Consumer Protection Act.

Gandhi had engaged the professional services of M. Mathias, a lawyer. Subsequently, a dispute arose and Gandhi alleged negligence on the part of Mathias and filed a consumer complaint against him at the district consumer forum. The district consumer forum directed the lawyer to pay Gandhi Rs 3,000 as compensation for mental agony and harassment.

Mathias challenged this order in the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission which overruled the district forum’s order by saying that a complaint against a lawyer was not maintainable before the consumer forum as the service rendered by lawyers did not come under Section 2(1)() of the Consumer Protection Act. The section says service “means service of any description which is made available to potential users and includes, but not limited to, the provision of facilities in connection with banking, financing, insurance, transport, processing, supply of electrical or other energy, board or lodging or both, housing construction, entertainment, amusement or the purveying of news or other information, but does not include the rendering of any service free of charge or under a contract of personal service”.

Gandhi appealed against this order at the National Commission which said the reasoning given by the State Commission was erroneous. The National Commission stated that the ambit and scope of Section 2(1)() of the Consumer Protection Act which defines “service” was very wide and well established. It covered all services except rendering of services free of charge or a contract of personal service. Undisputedly, lawyers were rendering service. They were charging fees. It was not a contract of personal service. Therefore, there was no reason to hold that they were not covered by the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.

However, the Bar of Indian Lawyers, a group of Indian lawyers practicing all over the country, with Jasbir Singh Malik as its president challenged the stand of the National Commission.

“We contend that the service rendered by a lawyer will not come within the ambit of Section 2(1)() of the Consumer Protection Act as the client executes the power of attorney authorising the counsel to act on his behalf and there is no term of contract for the liability of the advocate in case he fails to do any such act,” says Jasbir Singh Malik.

Consumer activists disagree with Malik’s contention. “The order of the National Commission bringing lawyers under the Consumer Protection Act is an excellent order that will make lawyers accountable to clients,” says Bejon Misra, executive director of Consumer Voice. Misra believes that the National Commission order will improve the judicial system and weed out substandard professionals in the legal profession. “It will accelerate the improvement in service delivery in legal counselling,” he observes.

If doctors can come under the fold of the Consumer Protection Act as enumerated in the case of the Indian Medical Association vs V.P. Shantha in 1995, lawyers and all other providers of services like chartered accountants, architects and property dealers should come under the Consumer Protection Act too,” Mishra says.

His views are echoed by Jaydip Chatterjee, an engineer and entrepreneur based in Mumbai. He says, “Lawyers are just like service providers in any other profession and if technical consultants can come under the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, so should lawyers since they provide similar service to clients as technicians.”

Besides, as Dr Alok Basu Mallik, partner of Care and Cure Nursing Home in Calcutta points out, “If doctors can come under the Consumer Protection Act, so should lawyers. In fact, if lawyers blunder and do not make the right arguments by flawed drafting of a case, they should be held accountable.”

The National Commission says that “a lawyer may not be responsible for the favourable outcome of a case as the result / outcome does not depend only on lawyers’ work. But if there is deficiency in rendering services promised, for which consideration in the form of fee is received by him, then the lawyers can be proceeded against under the Consumer Protection Act”.

The argument of the National Commission is contested by advocate Prabir Basu, member of the Bar Association of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, who says that in the relationship between a lawyer and his client, the lawyer is the agent and the client is the principal. “For any act of the agent, the principal is liable and thus it cannot be said that the service provided by a lawyer adheres to the definition of service provided in Section 2(1)() of the Consumer Protection Act,” says Basu.

However, Mala Banerjee, president of the Federation of Consumer Associations, West Bengal, asserts that lawyers have always come under the Consumer Protection Act since as agents they are taking money from principals.

“The National Commission order is a reconfirmation of what already exists under the Consumer Protection Act,” she says. According to Jasbir Singh Malik, the Bar of Indian Lawyers maintains that lawyers are not providing a service but are assisting the court as part of a justice delivery system in the capacity of an officer of the court. The Supreme Court has admitted Singh’s petition. But until the final judgment comes, lawyers will have to exercise more caution in dealing with clients.