A prospective law lacking in enforcement

Although nearly a year has passed since the passage of the Consumer Protection Act in parliament, activities towards putting the mechanisms in place to enforce the law effectively have hardly started. So, it will be not irrelevant to wonder if its application takes another decade or so just like the way time was wasted in considering the law for adoption. Clearly, a new piece of legislation has been introduced to address issues of importance from the perspective of the public interest. If this objective is not met, then only the symbolic availability of a law must appear as an empty gesture.
Besides, the law also suffers from serious deficiencies. These were pointed out recently at a roundtable discussion where the participants raised the question about how it lacked the vital provisions that would be utilised by duly aggrieved consumers to be compensated for bad or substandard products. It was also stressed that there was no adequate provision in it to take steps against dishonest traders for unjustified price hike. Other deficiencies were also discussed at the roundtable and the discussants, according to media reports, considered the law here to be far different from the ones that operate in other countries where consumer protection has proved to be truly effective from the existence of such laws.

Shamim Azad
Gulshan, Dhaka