Getting the short end of the stick
ordinary restaurant employee had managed to clone the credit card of one of India’s top industrialists. Since he was an influential man, the criminals were apprehended.
Thousands of such cases involving similar fraud are pending with numerous law enforcement authorities. But there is no sign of redressal. People thought such fraud was limited to just ATMs and credit cards. But the revelations in the Uttar Pradesh petrol pump scam have proved that the rights of the consumer are not safe anywhere. For this a chip was inserted in the cable of the petrol dispensing machine to steal as much as 50 to 100 ml per litre of petrol or diesel using a remote control. Where is the guarantee that this is not happening in other parts of the nation? Can anybody assure us that the digital scales used to weigh products of daily use that we buy are not being tampered with?
Digital transactions are a fact of life today, but the consumer was being cheated yesterday and he is being cheated today.
What can be done to prevent such incidents? A simple solution to this is strengthening our regulatory bodies. How can this be achieved, though? Important posts in our law enforcement agencies stay vacant for long periods of time. This happens because political patrons don’t find people ‘suitable’ to man these positions. Last year the then Chief Justice of India TS Thakur had said that more than 70,000 judges at different levels of the judiciary were required to clear pending cases in the country. This had increased the judiciary’s workload and created numerous challenges for judicial processes.
When our courts are lying vacant, who will bother about government panels and regulatory bodies?
Still, please keep something in mind. The basic premise of a democracy is the safeguarding of the rights of its citizens. Those brave warriors busy conducting virtual wars with Pakistan and China on social media should address this question: are the consumers who are being short-changed on every platform not a part of the world’s largest democracy?