CRPL has many loopholes
ET Report

Consumer Right Protection Law-2009 (CRPL) would not be able to protect the consumers' rights in the country without some amendments, as it has many loopholes, speakers at a discussion said Thursday.
The discussants opined that the existing law, which was promulgated in April 2009 as the country's first self certain consumer protection law, some sections of it make provide a way for the offenders to escape.
They cited those weak sections against the interest of the consumers like sections 60-62,67,71,72,76(4), 78(2) etc.
They were speaking at the 'multi stakeholder national level consultation on CPRL,' organized jointly by Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB), Consumers International Kuala Lumpur (CI-KL), UNIDO, EU and NORAD, held at the CIRDAP Auditorium in the city.
The president of CAB Quazi Faruque chaired the programme while head of CI-KL for the Asia Pacific & Middle East Ms. Indrani Thuraisingham, secretary of CAB Humayun Kabir Bhuiyan, Assistant Professor of department of law of Jagannath University S.M. Masum Billah, among others spoke on the occasion.
The participants pointed out that Section 71(1) of CPRL specifies that none can make any complaint about violation of consumer rights to the magistrate court or the CMM, the people are placed only at the mercy of the council for protection of their rights which is bound to meet with failure.
The discussants said that according to Sec 60, the director general of the consumer protection council is the only person possessing absolute authority to deal with matters relating to violation which of rights is disappointingly.
They also pointed out that section 61 says that if a victim fail to file case within 90 days, it will be invalid, but it dose not specify what would happen if DG fails to act within the period.
Answering a question Quazi Faruque said that "though the law is new, we want the implementation of the existing law and also want amendments to it. The speakers urged the government to strengthen the law by detecting the loopholes of the law for protecting the consumers' rights.