Consumer court has power to grant Injunction

Consumer court/forum HAS power to grant Injunction

Consumer court/forum HAS power to pass Interim Order


Against popular belief consumer court/forum of India is very well empowered under the consumer protection act to pass injunction orders. There are many books/publications and other media sources that say the quite opposite. One such book is Consumer Protection in India by P.K.Majumdar. Mr. Majumdar has incorrectly said in his book that consumer forums cannot pass interim orders and neither they can pass injunction orders. Old cases dating back to early 90's have been quoted for justification.

The fact is that the Consumer Protection Act was amended in 2002 and section 13 (3-B) was added which empowers the consumer forum to pass interim orders. And who is to say that an order cannot lead to an injunction. Infact even before the amendment there was nothing barring the consumer forum to pass such orders. It is just that high priced lawyers representing big businesses created this false notion. The Morgan Stanley Mutual Fund vs Kartick Das 1994 SCC (4) 225 is one such case that is often cited to raise questions over the jurisdiction of consumer forums in passing such orders. But even in the Morgan Stanley case, a careful reading of the judgment would reveals that, the apex court did not impose an absolute bar in passing exparte injunction orders but only laid down the conditions for passing such orders. This is explained in a article that is found at http://jklaws.in/details.aspx?id=35. But sadly the inference from this case are misrepresented to raise questions on jurisdiction of consumer forum. Well its time to say goodbye to Morgan Stanley!


In a landmark judgment on 12.08.2011 the Allahabad High court passed an order upholding an interim injunction order of the district consumer forum. In Writ C 25969 of 2011 the Hon'ble high court has upheld the injunction order of the district consumer forum that was challenged by the aggrieved party via a Writ. The details of this case is as below
1. Consumer/complainant was granted an interim injunction by Ghaziabad (U.P) district consumer forum.
2.  The injunction order restrained the builder/opposite party from raising elevation of a building beyond the first floor level.
3. Builder challenged the jurisdiction of the consumer forum in passing orders of such nature via Writ in Allahabad High Court.
4. High court granted an exparte-stay to the builder. The district consumer forum interim order was stayed.
5. After hearing the consumer/respondent the High court vacated the stay.

Moral of the story is consumer court has jurisdiction to pass interim orders and injunction orders.

The High Court exparte-stay order, stay vacation order and final disposal of the writ petition can be seen below.

Ghaziabad Consumer Court injunction order stayed by High Court


HC Stay Vacated


Mahagun Writ Disposed Off