The main legal point established in the judgment is the right of recognized consumer associations to have the right of audience before the Consumer Forum, emphasizing the need to simplify access to justice.

Mr. Justice D.P. Wadhwa, President—It is the normal practice to record appreciation of the assistance rendered by the amicus curiae at the close of the order. In the present case, however, we make a departure. We record our appreciation of the able assistance rendered by Mr. Gopal Subramaniam, Senior Advocate which has benefited us in writing this order. This Commission is grateful to him for the deep study he made on the subject and presented all the points with clarity and with his usual lucid manner. We also record our appreciation of the assistance rendered by Mr. Dayan Krishnan, Ms. Sonia Sharma and Ms. Astha Tyagi who were appointed amicus curiae to assist Mr. Gopal Subramaniam. It was gracious of Gopal Subramaniam to say that but for the research made by the assisting Counsel he would not have been able to present his arguments.

2. We suo motu issued notice in the matter of Authorised Representative being Revision Petition No. 1017/2002 and for that we recorded our order on 14.6.2002 which gives indication of the issues involved in the case, and we quote :

“Registrar of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has placed before me a letter dated 15th April, 2002, received from the Registrar of the Tamilnadu State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission enclosing therewith a copy of the order dated 10th April, 2002 in Original Petition No. 104/2000 pending before the State Commission. The order is of as many as 81 pages and then there are Annexures running into 8 pages. The order covers many issues which have far-reaching consequences and in fact some of the issues, I do not find to be quite related to the decision of the complaint pending before the State Commission.

A complaint was filed before the State Commission by the widow mother and two minor children of deceased K.N. Subramaniam. The complaint relates to medical negligence of Dr. Rangabashyam and the Apollo Hospital, Chennai. The complaint was filed through Shri N. Chandrasekaran as an authorized agent. He is the Secretary of Consumer Welfare Foundation Chennai. State Commission noticed that the complaint was signed only by the widow and Shri N. Chandrasekaran also signed the complaint as a Counsel for the complainant. A vakalat has also been filed in the name of Mr. S. Natarajan, Advocate and Mr. N. Chandrasekaran as Counsel for the complainant. It appears at a later stage on 14.2.2002, Mr. N. Chandrasekaran suo motu revoked the vakalat in favour of Mr. S. Natarajan. Mr. N. Chandrasekaran has also filed an authorization letter from the widow to represent her case before the State Commission. This authority was not signed by the widow as the guardian of her minor children. Mother of the deceased did not give any authority in favour of Mr. N. Chandrasekaran to represent her case.

Deceased, Subramanian had breathed his last on 3.5.1998. The complaint was filed within a period of limitation and it came for admission before the State Commission on 14.2.2002, almost four years after the death of Subramanian. State Commission immediately raised a doubt as to whether it was legally permissible for an authorized agent like Mr. N. Chandrasekaran to have a right of audience before even the complaint was admitted. State Commission in order to answer this question, issued notices to various Bar Associations and Consumer Associations and also affixed a notice on the Notice Boards of the State Commission and District Forums based in Chennai. State Commission was of the view that Rule 4 Sub-clause (8) of the Tamil Nadu Consumer Protection Rules, 1988 could not at all have any legal effect and the said sub-rule must have to be struck down as null and void or must have to be read down in conformity with the statutory provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. According to the State Commission, the Act itself did not contain any statutory provisions at all empowering the parties to engage an authorized representative on their behalf to represent their case. In t