Mere repeal of Consumer Protection Act, 1986, by 2019 Act, would not result in exclusion of ‘health care’ services rendered by doctors to patients from definition of term ‘service’:Bombay HC

Read Order: Medicos Legal Action Group vs. Union of India 

Pankaj Bajpai

Mumbai, November 10, 2021: The Bombay High Court has held that mere repeal of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 by the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, without anything more, would not result in exclusion of ‘health care’ services rendered by doctors to patients from the definition of the term “service”. 

The Coram of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G.S. Kulkarni therefore directed the petitioning Trust to pay fifty thousand as costs, to the Maharashtra State Legal Services Authority within a month from date failing which such sum shall be recovered as arrears of land revenue.  

“If at all the Parliament while repealing and replacing the 1986 Act with the 2019 Act had intended to give a meaning to the term “service” different from the one given by the Supreme Court, such intention ought to have been reflected in clear words by a specific exclusion of ‘health care’ from the purview of the 2019 Act. While construing a statute, what has not been said is equally important as what has been said”, observed the Coram. 

The observation came pursuant to a PIL filed by a Trust, registered in Chandigarh, seeking declaration from this Court that services performed by healthcare service providers are not included within the purview of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 as well as for mandamus directing all consumer forum within the territorial jurisdiction of this Court not to accept complaints filed under the 2019 Act against healthcare service providers.

The above-mentioned reliefs were claimed by Medicos Legal Action Group (Petitioner) on the ground that parliamentary debates on the Consumer Protection Bill, 2018 preceding the 2019 Act led to exclusion of ‘healthcare’ from the definition of the term “service” as defined in the Bill. 

The petitioning Trust therefore urged that the 2019 Act having been brought into force upon repeal of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, registration of complaints, which are filed against doctors, by the consumer forum in the State of Maharashtra is illegal and be declared as such. 

After perusing the definition of “service” in section 2(1)(o) of the 1986 Act and in section 2(42) of the 2019 Act, the High Court found that there is no material difference between the two except inclusion of ‘telecom’ in section 2(42) of the 2019 Act. 

The High Court opined that the contention raised by the counsel for the petitioning Trust, of the Minister having made certain statements in course of parliamentary debates on the Bill that preceded the 2019 Act, is of little relevance.

In the context of the 1986 Act and the 2019 Act, there could be no two opinions that the definition of “service” having been read, understood and interpreted by the Supreme Court in Indian Medical Association vs. V. P. Shantha & Ors. , to include services rendered by a medical practitioner to his patient upon acceptance of fees/charges, the parliamentarians might have thought of not including `health care’ as that would have amounted to a mere surplusage, added the Court.

The Division Bench therefore went on to observe that merely because of enactment of the 2019 Act upon repeal of the 1986 Act as well as the parliamentary debates referred to by the petitioning Trust, the efficacy of the law laid down in the decision in Indian Medical Association(supra) as a binding precedent would not stand eroded. 

Hence, the petition stood dismissed by the Bench.