Bombay High Court quashes Rule 6(1) of Consumer Protection Rules on appointment of president, members of consumer commissions

The Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court struck down Rule 6 of the Consumer Protection Rules that dealt with the constitution of the selection committee for appointing president and members of the State and District Consumer Commissions [Mahendra Limaye v. Union of India and connected matters]..Rule 6 stipulates that the president and members of the State Commission and the District Commission can be appointed on the recommendation of a selection committee. It also lays down the composition of the selection committee and specifies that it shall have Chief Justice of the High Court or any judge of the High Court nominated by the Chief Justice as the chairperson and comprise the secretary in-charge of the Consumer Affairs of the State government and nominee of the Chief Secretary of the State government as its members. .A division bench of Justices AS Chandurkar and Vrushali Joshi struck down the provision on the ground that the same results in excessive executive interference in appointment of president and members of the State and District Commissions and dilutes the involvement of the judiciary in the process.“With the Chairperson being the sole representative of the Judiciary in the three Member selection committee, there is lack of judicial dominance which has been held to be in direct contravention of the doctrine of separation of powers and also an encroachment on the judicial domain. Its present composition definitely results in excessive interference of the Executive in the appointment of President and members of the State Commission and the District Commission. It results in diluting the involvement of judiciary in the process of appointment of members of the Tribunals amounting to an encroachment by the executive on the judiciary,” the Court held..It further noted that if the secretary in-charge of Consumer Affairs of the State government is a member, the sponsoring department which is the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Civil Supplies would have a definite role to play in the appointments to the State and District Commissions.For this reason, the Court upheld the challenge to the validity to the provision and quashed the same..The judgment was passed on a petition filed Dr. Mahendra Bhaskar Limaye who also challenged the notifications of April 10, 2023 and June 13, 2023 constituting the Selection Committee.Since Rule 6(1) of the Rules of 2020 was quashed, the Court also struck down the notifications..The bench also noted that the Rule 6(9) of the Rules of 2020 had been struck down by an earlier co-ordinate bench. The rule provided for the selection committee to determine its procedure for making its recommendations.Considering these two rules had been quashed, the court directed the selection committee to follow the rules of 2019 to determine the basis of making its recommendation..Certain members of the State and District Commissions had also approached the court with a petition challenging Rule 10(2) that reduced the tenure of a member to 4 years.They claimed that the original tenure had been 5 years which had been reduced to 4 years.The High Court partly allowed those petitions too and struck down Rule 10 to the extent it prescribes the tenure of the members and the President to be four years..Advocates Dr TD Mandlekar and TV Fadnavis appeared for the petitioners.Senior advocate SP Dharmadhikari with Advocate Rohan Malviya appeared for the commission members.Deputy solicitor general NS Deshpande appeared for Union.Advocate AM Deshpande in-charge Government Pleader appeared for State.[Read Judgment]