KARACHI: Despite Sindh Assembly approving the Sindh Consumer Protection Act 2014 which was later signed by the governor and gazetted in 2015, the establishment of consumer courts is yet to be seen.
“We have been demanding the establishment of consumer courts and have also recently registered an appeal to Sindh High Court Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M Sheikh and forwarded it to Sindh Governor Mohammad Zubair and Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah,” Hamid Maker, who heads a consumer rights entity Helpline Trust, told Pakistan Today.
“There is no place a consumer can go to if he feels cheated or has been badly affected by a product or a service,” he said.
Despite the resolution which was passed in the Sindh Assembly years back, rules and regulations for the law passed are yet to be enacted as consumer courts are yet to see daylight.
Without consumer courts, people by and large remain at the mercy of market forces and are exploited. Sindh government is yet to provide a platform for consumers to register complaints.
Citizens have been posting videos on social media regarding expired items sold by large superstores quite often. This seems to be the only way for consumers to record their protest and complain here in Sindh. Meanwhile, there are 11 consumer courts in Punjab and 15 in KPK.
“India has 3,000 consumer courts. We do not even have 1 here in the second largest province of Pakistan,” Maker added.
He further said that without government intervention – that is through consumer courts, consumers will remain exploited since the business entities have the power to operate like mafias and therefore are very strong.
Maker told Pakistan Today that most industries are run by cartels and it is impossible for consumers to lodge their complaints. “If there is a cartel in an industry then who could dare complain against them and the bigger question is where to record the complaint. There are laws but they have not been implemented therefore so far it is useless,” he added.
