01. Who can approach the redressal agencies established under the Consumer Protection Act for redressal of his grievances?

A consumer, as defined in section 2(1)(d) of the Act, or any voluntary consumer association registered under the Companies Act, 1956 or under any other law for the time being in force or the Central Government or any State Government or one or more consumers where there are numerous consumers having the same interest, or in case of death of a consumer, his legal heir or representative, can file a complaint in writing alleging that an unfair trade practice or a restrictive trade practice has been adopted by any trader or service provider; or the goods bought by him or agreed to be bought by him suffer from one or more defects; or the services hired or availed of or agreed to be hired or availed of by him suffer from deficiency in any respect; or a trader or the service provider, as the case may be, has charged for the goods or for the services mentioned in the complaint, a price in excess of the price - (a) fixed by or under any law for the time being force; (b) displayed on the goods or any package containing such goods; (c) displayed on the price list exhibited by him by or under any law for the time being in force; (d) agreed between the parties; or goods which will be hazardous to life and safety when used are being offered for sale to the public (i) in contravention of any standards relating to safety of such goods as required to be complied with, by or any law for the time being in force of (ii) if the trader could have known with due diligence that the goods so offered are unsafe to the public; or services which are hazardous or likely to be hazardous to life and safety of the public when used, are being offered by the service provider which such persons could have known with due diligence to be injurious to life and safety; with a view to obtaining any relief provided by or under the Act.


02. How to approach and where to approach and what are the requirements for filing a complaint before the State Commission and the District Forums

No format is prescribed for filing a complaint. A complaint can be filed even on plain paper. The services of an Advocate are not required. Complaints, where the value of goods or services and the compensation, if any, claimed does not exceed Rs. 20 lakhs, can be filed before a District Forum where the Opposite Party or each of the opposite parties where there are more than one, at the time of the institution of the complaint, actually and voluntarily resides or carries on business or has a branch office or personally works for gain, or any of the opposites parties, where there are more than one at the time of institution of the complaint, actually and voluntarily resides, or carries on business or has a branch office or personally works for gain, provided that in such case either the permission of the District Forum is given or any of the opposite parties, who do not reside or carry on business or have a branch office or personally work for gain, as the case may be, acquiesce in such institution,; or the cause of action wholly or in part had arisen.
In the case where the value of the goods or services and the compensation, if any, claimed exceeds Rs.20 lakhs but does not exceed Rs. 1 crore, in that event such a complaint can be filed before the State Commission having jurisdiction and in case where the value of the goods or services or compensation, if any, claimed exceeds Rs. 1 crore, in that event the complaint straightaway can be filed in the National Commission situated at New Delhi.


03. What are the requirements for filing an Appeal against the orders of the District Forums to the State Commission?

As per the provisions of the Act, any person aggrieved by an order passed by the District Forum may prefer an appeal against such order to the State Commission within a period of 30 days from the date of order. The period of limitation for filing the appeal is to be computed from the date of communication of the order to the aggrieved party. Proviso to Section 15 of the Act provides that the State Commission may entertain an appeal even after the expiry of said period of 30 days if it is satisfied that there was sufficient cause for not filing the same within that period. The procedure for filing the statutory appeal against the orders of the District Forums to the State Commission has been laid down in Rule 8 of the Delhi Consumer Protection Rules, 1987.


04. In case the orders passed by the redressal agencies are not implemented, remedy available to aggrieved person

In case the orders passed by the District Forum or by the State Commission, as the case may be, are not implemented, the aggrieved person has a right to file an Application for implementation of the orders, under section 25 and/or under section 27 of the Act, as he may be advised.

for submitting complaints at consumer forums,whether original of documents/receipts supporting our case need be submitted?

or photo copies of concerned documents are enough?

if photo copies,is it necessary to get the same attested by gazetted officers or notary?

Dear sir,

I took one airtel postpaid no.9612168446 in my brother's name some months back for GPRS connection. I was told that 260MB can be used for browsing/month. After I use for some time. I was shocked to notice that GPRS cannot be used successfully. It was terribly slow and so many disconnections while in use. Thinking that another plan may be better, I requested the customer care officers to change my plan where I get max.GPRS data. I used it (but I had no Idea about the plan) for some days. Unfortunately, I lost my sim. Immediately, I told the customer care officers to deactivate the sim. In the mean time, I lodged a FIR to police station. My brother also told the same to the airtel office, babupara Imphal.Later, I took another SIM (prepaid) We thought that everything was fine. Later, these people in airtel office called my brother and told about the bills (amount of Rs.3500) to be paid within 7 days. We have told about FIR but they do not listen. They continously threaten my brother, which I dont like very much.
My brother was about to complain to consumers forum. I told him to wait for some moments till I get a response from airtel. So' please help us in solving our problem as soon as possible.

Respected Sir,
I wish to bring to your kind attention certain issues that I have been facing with my house construction team.
In the month of December 2007, 1) Mr.M.BALASUBRAMANIAM@RAMALINGAM S/o,Mr.Mannankatty (said one of the builders in Chennai, shifted to 5, Ponnambala Mudali Street, Old Vandippalayam, Cuddalore, but stayed with his brother) & 2) Mr.M.ARUNAGIRI (working as Trained Graduate Teacher in Govt. High School, Dharmapuri, Puducherry residing in Lawspet, Puducherry) approached my father in law and me to build a residential house in my plot. Since their approach is decent, begging for a start for their builder work in Puducherry via me and the cost of construction also reasonable, we decided to give them construction work for full contract (since not accepting for labour contract) after consulting many builders and friends.

I have started building my own residence on 26th January 2008 and let the construction work with the unregistered contractor. We made a mutual work deed in 10 rupees stamp paper and signed by both on 1st February 2008. It was not registered. We have mentioned the way and methodology and materials to be used, etc., in the agreement.
Pitiable work by contractor: In the beginning of work the contractor and his brother promises a lot that they will look after everything. They do so until we believe them, well-known and know the cheating tricks. The contractor did not appoint any watchman / security, if so; he didn’t pay money so that he lost some building materials, wiring materials and workers. Therefore, for a month we cured the roof and walls. He has no permanent workers because, before the start of work he promises numerous things he will do to the workers, but in the finishing stage he did not give money, dress or anything to them properly, either saying that he has no gain in the building or the building owner is not settled the account. He does flooring work in our house and here he does some major mistakes. Instead of using wood in windows he uses one side glass. Mother walls and ventilators are not properly finished so rain water is entering freely. On the top of house he also does waterproofing and from that area the leakage starts in these days due to incompletion of final touch up. He said that these are all minor mistakes and that he will do it cheap for us (Said cost Rs. 60,000/= but Billed Rs.92,375/= without proper bills).

Defects in construction: The contractor and his brother asked to take possession of the house before the completion of the construction. But I strictly informed them to complete the bending works then only I take possession of new house. I gave a list mentioning incomplete works like non functioning of one phase, no white washing, polishing and painting on the borders, hidden / non viewable areas, single coating on most of the wood and metal items, hand raids, etc.,. Pooja door, Main door and back door are not in a good finish. They said they are unable to look after the property and all the bending works will be finished within a week and post possession they are responsible for any mistakes asked to correct by the owner of the house.

Believing their words as clean, I took possession of new house. The contractor or his brother never pays a visit by them-self or on call for completing the bending works. They unwillingly send workers as they like or when there is no work in their site & operating the workers from remote. Now dispute take place between us. One day a call came from M.ARUNAGIRI saying that his brother received in excess from me so there is a lot of confusion in his family. Then I asked for a bill to settle the amount and also I asked M.ARUNAGIRI, ”If you are to pay the amount when you will ready to pay it because you are my contractor and you only took your brother as contractor also teach him underground tricks and said you are responsible for everything”. He said his brother is the contractor who will pay it and why am I asking about it to him. In the mean time the water line was broken and my wife approached our contractor working in the nearby new site to correct the water line and drainage problem at once. He insulted her in front of the labourers and sent a plumber after a day to correct the water line. The drainage problem was corrected after 5 - 6 months. Regrettably none of the builder vouches or put quality stamp on the property which can only be deciphered post possession.

The house was used only from end of March 2009. Post usage heavy water seepage started from the headroom walls and glasses, Main switch board. The builder was called upon and requested to repair the damage which out of poor civil work via mediators on 24th August 2009. The builder is not taking prompt action despite several communications.
I have made a request to produce the original purchase bills for exact amount for the extra works done and I asked to settle the account by giving a bill and said to him that he had to pay the excess money to me as per my estimate. He took more than six months for preparing a false bill. Often he is telling to my father in law & mother in law that he had prepared the bill and I have to pay only Rs. 20,000, 40,000, 60,000 etc., But on urge he submitted a bogus bill on 24th August 2009 without original bills repeating many items again and again showing I have to pay Rs.1.5Lakhs. I asked him to explain the things because I’m a layman. He said he will come and explain it and finish the work after his daughter marriage. After submitting the bill without giving any time to check it the contractor asked for Rs.50,000/= for taking dress for his daughter marriage and to settle the balance due with his illiterate wife and also he told before the mediators and me he should give a written assurance about his completion of the bending works. His daughter is going to produce offspring but the bending works has no improvement. He had given me lot of date for rectification but now it’s around 12-16 month crossed and I haven't received any sort of completion work.

The builder is not ready to respond but unnecessarily shouted in the road when I was not in the residence. Till date there was no improvement in the situation after talking through the mediators on 10th May 2010 after 24th August 2009. But still we don't want to go for his work; we want to do work with some other guy. We want that he will pay for that and we don't want to repeat our mistake to give work back to him. For the builder this is mere a house but for people like us it is our dream, nobody has right to play with this.

Cunningly the contractor planned and exhausted a lot of my money in decorative works only to get contract from others. The plot owners are giving offer to the useless contractor without consulting the building owners, also seeing the decorative work and not knowing anything about the contractor hence these guys are doing fraud with many people.

The lack of accountability and ethics in the system of law and order against such white culprits, the fact remains that no amount of compensation can make up for the trauma and mental torture that I and my family members have gone through and further how long. May I know what options open for me to do now is. It will be a great help if you give an idea to solve my problem. I would like to request you to take necessary action against the unqualified and unregistered construction contractor in Puducherry Mr.M.BALASUBRAMANIAM@RAMALINGAM. Hope to hear from your end soon.

Note: Dear friends be careful of Cutthroat M.ARUNAGIRI & Corrupt Contractor M.BALASUBRAMANIAM@RAMALINGAM when they approach you, your friends or relatives.

Thanking you,
Sincerely yours,
Ravi .N

i had purchased a micromax mobile in december , and after 2 days the mobile stopped charging itself , i took it to the vendor and he inturn asked me to approach service center in secunderabad , so i went to the micromax authorised service center and the service guy said it was a defective battery and told me to deposit with them so as to claim a fresh replacement for the battery , it has been 3 months now and they have not given any replacement , every time i call them they ask me to call after a week ,
i'm vexed with this procedure and would like to seek redressal from consumer court , somebody please advise me on how to go about with the procedure.
any help is greatly welcomed.

Dr Ajay Reddy
Hyderabad

The internet is not working since jan 2011. I am being sent bills regularly. Nodal office people are pathetic and do not respond to mails and even the appellate authority is not responding.
Mental harrasment, hell lot of money wasted on complaints.
I have paid bills and no waiver is being given.
It is neither being disconnected inspite of repeated requests.
I m a working person and cant chase this all day and register requests daily.
These guys harass me a lot.
Billing Account No. : 100000115253592
Customer A/c Number : 100114411075

Sir,
This Dheeraj Kumar P, resident of Karimnagar, Andhra Pradesh. Sir I have been using BSNL Home Broadband Connections from several years. The service went fine for the last few years. But I am encountered with numerous problems with my internet connections in the recent days. For which they said it could be the line problem. So I have installed new telephone line very recently. Then as per the advice from BSNL authoriy I have changed my plan. Even after then the same problem repeats for me. The authorities are finding only a temporary solution to the problem.
I am even paying my bills at regular intervals and at right time.

Phone Number: 0878-2246052
Billing Account No: 9022976719
Customer Id : 4008003386

My Address For communication