I have been associated with CAG almost from its inception in 1985. Consumer Action Group (CAG), was founded on 7th October 1985, as a non-profit, non-political, non-religious, voluntary and professional citizen group based in Chennai. A group of eminent citizens interested in integrity of public issues and in protection of consumer rights started the organization. The group originally wanted to concentrate only on preservation and protection of consumer rights and creating awareness of consumer responsibilities and therefore it retained its name as “Consumer Action Group”. The main thrust of CAG’s work was consumer protection and it did an admirably good job in that direction in the initial years. The Union Government recognized the contributions of CAG to consumer protection and therefore in 1989 and in 1991 it received national awards.
A couple of decades later since it widely expanded the scope of its activities and interventions on matters involving the common man, it changed its name to “ Citizen Consumer and Civic Action Group” to reflect the breadth of its reach.
In the early days it functioned from a small office which was actually located in a car shed and was an adjunct to the office of Sriram Panchu, one if its founders a senior advocate who was the prime driving force behind the organization. In the initial years, it played a very adversarial role and thus took to court many public issues which were crying for attention. The CAG met with a fair degree of success in these many litigations and thus its reputation grew and it came to be respected as an unbiased and dependable institution.
In its formative years, the CAG had the support of many public spirited zealous youngsters to support the organization. Issues for deliberation, awareness creation and action came from newspaper articles, letters written by concerned citizens to the group, communications from environmental activists and heritage enthusiasts and so on. These issues would be taken up for discussion and CAG would invariably reach out to authorities seeking intervention and remedial action. Only in cases where the authorities refused to offer redress, then the decision would be taken to escalate the complaint to an appropriate redressal forum. As days passed, many Government. organizations recognized that CAG was a bonafide group in representing public interest and was not a front for vested interest. Even in the office of CAG, if there was even a slight degree of discomfort with the status of the complainant and if the organization suspected that other invisible forces were at work behind the ostensible complainant then CAG would refrain from initiating any action on the complaint. CAG was keen that it should never become an agency for vested interests to exploit.. It was this that contributed hugely to the image of the organization as one that would not unreasonably support a cause. The pre- operation deliberation helped to clear our minds about the direction of the action.
For law interns, to work at CAG was a remarkably enriching experience. It was then and it continues to be so today. The sheer range of activities and concerns were an eye opener to the ways in which Government enterprises, companies, etc. functioned or rather failed to function.
The United Nations(UN GUIDELINES FOR CONSUMER PROTECTION) was adopted in 1985. Almost immediately thereafter CAG was founded in 1985 and almost contemporaneously the Consumer Protection Act 1986 came to be enacted. This act was the response to the call given by the UN in 1985 which served as a framework for the said Act.
The COPRA (as the Consumer Protection Act came to be referred to) aims to provide greater protection to consumers in India by declaring rights, creating a platform for dispute redressal and safeguarding consumers from unfair practices. The act formally recognized concepts such as consumer right, provided forums for consumer redressal: provided for protection from unfair practices: and in all was a progressive and landmark legislation in the area of consumer protection. Although this act came into effect in 1986, the forums that had to be established under the provisions of this act were not established till “Common Cause” a redoubtable and a very respected organization filed a PIL in the Supreme Court . It is on account of orders passed by the Supreme Court in the said litigation that ultimately an Act that was still born ultimately sprang to life.
Once these fora were established, CAG filed several petitions on behalf of aggrieved consumers before the fora. This supplemented the organizations efforts in finding relief to macro level problems before the traditional courts by way of Public Interest Litigation. Courts consistently held that unless these were filed along with aggrieved consumers no remedy could be granted in such petitions. Therefore a conscious decision was taken by the organization not to file cases before Consumer fora but to continue PILs in High Courts. It is heartening to see the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 has now been the amended by the 2019 Act, which is broader and effective in providing relief to consumers.
Today, CAG has by and large shed its adversarial roles and but still it persists with its non-litigation advocacies and strategies. It is involved amongst others in preventing road accidents, frequently preparing energy audit reports and coordinating with authorities to bring about a more stable electricity regime, educating youngsters and creating awareness regarding various range of goods and services available in the market and so on. The advent of e-commerce has also made the organization tech savvy and it now strives to grapple with and seek solutions to the problems, the new ways of doing business changes.
It also brings out various publication like its very well received “The Public Newsense” as also its consumer updates, current news and stoppwatch which are published in its websites.
CAG has been extremely lucky in having a group of people who have lent enormous amount of their time, energy and resources for the development of the organization. The contributions of Sriram Panchu, Senior advocate and co founder of CAG, The late much lamented Tara Murali, Barath Jayaraj, Anuradha Vasudev, Shobha Iyer, Anjana Iyer, and advocates T.Mohan, R. Venkata Krishanan and many others have been a very strong pillar of support for the organization. Of course, the staff of the institution Mrs. Amudha Vijayakumar( who has been with CAG for much of its 40 years of journey), Ms. S. Saroja, Mr.K.Vishnu Mohan Rao and many are the very pride of the institution and they lead a very enthusiastic, dedicated and committed bunch of youngsters who distinguish themselves by their hard work, zeal and commitment to the causes they work on.
We all do hope and pray that in time CAG, will celebrate its golden jubilee with recognition and glory it well deserves.
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