Term ‘Defect’ in The Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules 2020 

Term ‘Defect’ in The Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules 2020 

Subject: Governance

Section : Acts

Context: CCPA has written to District Collectors across India to investigate unfair trade practices and violation of consumer rights concerning manufacture or sale of such goods and submit Action Taken Report to CCPA.

Concept:

• Under Section 2(10) the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, “defect” means any fault, imperfection or shortcoming in the quality, quantity, potency, purity or standard which is required to be maintained by or under any law for the time being in force or under any contract, express or implied or as is claimed by the trader in any manner whatsoever in relation to any goods or product and the expression “defective” shall be construed accordingly.
• The Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules, 2020 stipulate that no e-commerce entity shall adopt any unfair trade practice, whether the in course of business on its platform or otherwise.

Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA)

• The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 establishes the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) whose primary objective will be to promote, protect and enforce the rights of consumers.
• It will be empowered to conduct investigations into violation of consumer rights and institute complaints / prosecution, order recall of unsafe goods and services, order discontinuation of unfair trade practices and misleading advertisements, impose penalties on manufacturers/endorsers/publishers of misleading advertisements.
• It will be headquartered in the National Capital Region of Delhibut the central government may set up regional offices in other parts of the country.

The Act defines “misleading advertisement” in relation to any product or service, as “an advertisement, which—

(i) falsely describes such product or service; or

(ii) gives a false guarantee to, or is likely to mislead the consumers as to the nature, substance, quantity or quality of such product or service; or

(iii) conveys an express or implied representation which, if made by the manufacturer or seller or service provider thereof, would constitute an unfair trade practice; or

(iv) deliberately conceals important information”.

Composition:

• It will have a Chief Commissioner as head, and only two other commissioners as members — one of whom will deal with matters relating to goods while the other will look into cases relating to services.
• The CCPA will have an Investigation Wing that will be headed by a Director General.
• District Collectors too, will have the power to investigate complaints of violations of consumer rights, unfair trade practices, and false or misleading advertisements.
• Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution is yet to issue guidelines on misleading advertisements.