Punjab & Haryana High Court Allows Its Former Judge's Plea, Says Amendment Extending Tenure Applies To Incumbent Members Of Consumer Fora

The Punjab & Haryana High Court has made it clear that the 2022 Amendment to the Consumer Protection Rules, which ameliorated the anomaly with respect to tenure of the Consumer Commissions' President and Members, is applicable to those holding the post as of date, even though their appointment was made prior to the amendment.

Rule 10 of the Consumer Protection Rules stipulated that Commission's President and Members shall hold office for a term of 4 years or till (s)he attains the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier. However, it was realized that usually, a retired High Court Judge is appointed to the post and therefore, he or she can never complete 4 years’ tenure as he or she retired as a Judge at the age of 62 years.

To ameliorate this, the 2022 Amendment extended the tenure till age of 67 years.

Single bench of Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma allowed the petition filed by Justice Daya Chaudhary, who retired from the Punjab and Haryana Court in January 2021. Justice Chaudhary was appointed as the President of the State Consumer Forum in August that year. She sought the benefit of the 2022 Amendment which would in effect extend her tenure. However, the Punjab government declined her request and informed her that the terms and conditions provided at the time of her appointment will remain in force. She thus moved this writ petition.

Opposing her plea, the State submitted that the amendment cannot be given retrospective effect.

The Court at the outset noted that the Amendment Rules sought to "substitute" the existing provision on tenure. It thus observed, "The word “substituted” used in the Rules of 2022, in ordinary course of language, would mean to replace word or phrase or sentence by another...Thus, the earlier Rule 10 which was existing in the statute namely the Rules of 2020 stands replaced by the new Rule."

Court drew analogy with replacement of a Team's Coach and said just like the previous coach has no say with regard to the team performance, similarly, the earlier Rule will no more be in existence. Court emphasized that the terms and conditions for office tenure of the President and Members, which were existing prior to the 2022 Amendment will have no further relevance.

Court said even if the State Government does not issue orders correcting the age of the President or the Member in terms of the new Rule 10, their terms shall be in accordance with new Rule 10.

"The interpretation of the Rule can also be understood by another example that suppose, if by way of an amendment, the age is decreased and tenure is also decreased, whether the concerned person holding the post can claim continuance of appointment on the basis of his original terms of appointment which provided for longer tenure or longer age as the case may be. The answer is “NO”. The appointment on a particular post is essentially governed by the Rules and the appointment order cannot be said to be a separate term of contract and it cannot be enforced dehors the existing amended Rules and therefore, the tenure would relate to the Rule governing the post as amended from time to time, unless the language of the Rule provides otherwise."

In the light of the above, the Court granted the relief stating that the terms of office of the President and Members, who are holding the post at present or who may hold the post in future, shall be governed by the amended Rule 10 of the Rules 2020.

Appearance: Gurminder Singh, Senior Advocate and Kushaldeep Kaur, Advocate, for the petitioner

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (PH) 192

Case Title: Justice Daya Chaudhary v. UOI & Ors.

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