In India, the discourse on the judicial system has largely been limited to the overall legal framework and the cases handled by courts. The physical space and design of courts have not been studied through the lens of the litigant. Through this report, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy attempted to reimagine courts as litigant-friendly and approachable spaces in terms of architectural design and layout, as envisaged through special legislations.
In this context, a special court that warranted a conscious shift of imagination is the consumer forum. Established through the Consumer Protection Act, 1958, these forums have the unique attribute of being established with the objective of encouraging litigants to represent their cases directly. This makes it very important that the forums be forthcoming, both in terms of the judicial process as well as the physical space.
This report is a first of its kind inter-disciplinary attempt by the JALDI Innovation Lab at Vidhi in collaboration with the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, which offers a blueprint for litigant-friendly consumer court infrastructure that can be replicated and scaled, and will contribute to realising the objectives of the consumer protection legislations. The collaboration started as a studio project for students, and later continued as a collaboration with me as a Srishti faculty member and architect, and I designed the model consumer court presented in the report.
Find out more about the project and download the report at https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/research/re-imagining-consumer-forums/
