S.29A Of Consumer Protection Act, 1986 Valid; Consumer Forums Can Pass Orders Without President: Bombay High Court

Case: Aparna Abhitabh Chatterjee v Union of India
Coram: Justices V. M. Deshpande and Amit B. Borkar
Case No.: wp. 199/21
Court Observation:
“The Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that Constitutional Courts can strike down legislative enactments only on two grounds, namely:- i) The legislator does not competent to make the law; ii) that such statute or provision takes away or breaches any of the fundamental rights enumerated in Part-III of the Constitution of India.”
“(b) that there is always a presumption in favour of the constitutionality of an enactment and the burden is upon him who attacks it to show that there has been a clear transgression of the constitutional principles; (c) that it must be presumed that the Legislature understands and correctly appreciates the need of its own people, that its laws are directed to problems made manifest by experience and that its discriminations are based on adequate grounds; (d) that the Legislature is free to recognise degrees of harm and may confine its restrictions to those cases where the need is deemed to be the clearest; (e) that
in order to sustain the presumption of constitutionality the Court may take into consideration matters of common knowledge, matters of common report, the history of the times and may assume every state of facts which can be conceived existing at the time of legislation”.

S.29A Of Consumer Protection Act 1986