The Consumer Court is a dispute redressal forum for consumers. It has three levels:
- District Consumer Forum
- State Consumer Forum
- National Consumer Forum
When a party is aggrieved by the order of the District Consumer Commission, an appeal is filed before the State Consumer Commission. However, if the order given by the State Consumer Commission is also adverse to the party, they may be tempted to invoke the Jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 as happened in the case of Mehra Bal Chikitsalaya Evam Navjat Shishu I.C.U. vs. Manoj Upadhyaya.
The Supreme Court in this case, clearly stated that, “We cannot help but to state in absolute terms that it is not appropriate for the High Courts to entertain writ petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution of India against the orders passed by the Commission, as a statutory appeal is provided and lies to this Court under the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. Once the legislature has provided for a statutory appeal to a higher court, it cannot be proper exercise of jurisdiction to permit the parties to bypass the statutory appeal to such higher court and entertain petitions in exercise of its powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.”
Moreover, even in the case of an order being passed by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, the High Court does not have the Jurisdiction to entertain an appeal against the order. This is due to the fact that an order passed by the National Commission under Section 27 of the Act is incapable of being questioned in the writ jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India as a statutory appeal in terms of Section 27-A(1)(c) lies before the Supreme Court. Therefore, in consumer cases, the order of appeal would be:
- District Consumer Commission
- State Consumer Commission
- National Consumer Commission
- Supreme Court