Consumer Court
Hears consumer complaints under provincial consumer protection law.
The forum
Consumer Courts hear complaints under the provinces' own consumer protection legislation, which is why the forum and its practice differ from one province to the next. The legislation is provincial, so what can be claimed, the time limit and the route of appeal all differ across Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
Where it sits
The principal seat is Lahore. It also sits at Karachi, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Sargodha, Bahawalpur, Peshawar and Quetta. A date given at one is not a date at another, which is why the bench belongs in the record with the date.
What a firm has to track
Individually small matters, often many at once — which is the volume problem rather than the complexity problem. What a firm needs is a list it can take to court in the morning, not a folder per matter. These matters are also small enough to be handled by whoever is free, which works only if the record is good enough for a different person each time. The note from the last hearing has to say what the court actually asked for.
The date the court gives is a fact. Whoever is standing there records it in CaseMate before they leave the building, and the office acknowledges it — it does not wait to be approved.
The firm decides who goes to the next hearing, against the hearing itself. A matter at a distant bench is a travel arrangement, not a line in a list.
Every previous date, its outcome and the note taken at the time — so a partner can be answered without opening the file.
A hearing in the past with nothing recorded against it is the one thing a diary must never hide. CaseMate lists them separately.
Start with today's list.
Set your firm up in a couple of minutes, enter the cases you are running this week, and let your associates report from court.