59-year-old providing free-of-cost legal aid to duped consumers

People born with the zeal to help others, without expectations, are few and far between. Yet, once in a while, some stand out from the common milieu. Such a person is a 59-year-old medico-legal consultant who has been providing free legal aid to consumers allegedly cheated by companies.

Dr Manohar Kamat, a medical practitioner who also completed a master's in law (LLM), is the general secretary of an NGO called Consumer Guidance Society of India (CGSI). After winning a case against Pal Peugot in which he was the complainant, Dr Kamat is now helping other investors who were duped by the same company.

Dr Kamat, while speaking to dna, said, "In 1996, I had paid a booking amount of Rs25,000 for a Pal Peugeot car. When the company failed to hand over the car, I approached the consumer forum in 1998, which had ordered the company that very year to pay back the amount with nine per cent interest from the date of filing the case and 18 per cent till the entire amount is paid back. However, the company went for an appeal against the district consumer's forum's order."

The company went on to approached the district consumer forum for four to five times, four times before the state consumer forum, twice before the Bombay high court and once before the Supreme court to contest the orders passed against the company. "Finally in 2014, after fighting for sixteen years, I received my booking amount along with the interest. Thus, the total amount which I received from the company was Rs1,04,000," said Dr Kamat.

Since, he received the compensatory amount from the company after the long-drawn fight, Dr Kamat wanted to create an awareness among other investors duped by the same company and who were fighting for redressal. He then organized a meeting for them, providing free legal aide for the same.