Bombay High Court Quashes certain provisions of the Consumer Protection Rules, 2020

The Central government suffered yet another set-back with respect to selection of Tribunal members when the Bombay High Court quashed certain provisions of the Consumer Protection Rules, 2020 in Vijay Kumar Bhima v. Union of India [P.I.L. No.11 of 2021].

Background

 The central government notified the Consumer Protection (Qualification for appointment, method of recruitment, procedure of appointment, term of office resignation and removal of President and Members of the State Commission and District Commission) Rules,2020 [hereinafter referred to as “Rules”] in exercise of its power conferred under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. The High Court in this case was concerned with Rules 3(2)(b), 4(2)(c) and 6(9).

Rules 3(2)(b) and 4(2)(c) dealt with the eligibility criteria of the prospective members of the State and District Commission respectively. In State commission, a person seeking appointment was required to have an experience of twenty years in consumer affairs, law, public affairs, administration, economics, commerce, industry, finance, management, engineering, technology, public health or medicine. Correspondingly, for the District Commission, the person seeking appointment was required to have fifteen years’ experience in the same fields as mentioned before.

Rule 6(9) required the selection committee, which is responsible for recommending the names to the government to be appointed in these tribunals to determine their own procedure for making recommendations.

Analysis

For Rules 3(2)(b) and 4(2)(c), the High Court had relied on the dictum of the Supreme Court wherein it has repeatedly held that ten years of experience is sufficient for appointment in such tribunals. Thus, the High Court quashed the Rules 3(2)(b) and 4(2)(c) because they prescribed an experience of fifteen years for District Commission and twenty years for State Commissions which was far greater than the prescribed period of ten years.

With respect to Rule 6(9), the High Court held that the provision conferred uncanalised discretion to the Selection committee in determining the standards of selection. According to the High Court, this had the potential to impact the independence and impartiality of members selected by such process. Thus, it violated Article 14 of the Constitution, which confers the right on the individual to get their dispute adjudicated by an independent and impartial forum. Thus, Rule 6(9) violated Article 14 of the Constitution and hence quashed. The High Court also opined that such conferment of power will develop a selection process that is not uniform across the country which is undesirable.

The High Court also quashed the advertisement that was made by the Selection committee for inviting application for appointments. As per the advertisement, the applicants were to be appointed solely on the basis of viva voice however amidst the case, the procedure was changed and written examination was also added. The court held that such a course could not have been chosen by the selection committee because the rules of selection cannot be changed once the selection process has commenced, hence leading to the quashing of the advertisement.

Thus, the rules and the advertisement were quashed and the appointments were required to be made de-novo.