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Legal Matters | Is the Consumer Protection Bill as good as it looks?

The new consumer protection law has many laudable provisions, but its success will depend on having adequate judges of good quality.

May 10, 2020 / 12:30 IST
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The Consumer Protection Bill, 2019, passed by Parliament on August 6, is a consumer’s dream come true. From the affirmation of consumer rights and checks on advertisers, to compensation for harm caused by manufacturing defects, there is much that is new and perhaps revolutionary.

Yet, as all dreams tend to be, this new law runs the risk of sounding much better than it actually is in practice.

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First, let’s look at the positives. The incumbent legislation was, as its name suggested, a law to protect consumers. Interestingly, it never features the term ‘consumer rights’. The proposed law, on the other hand, defines consumer rights — such as the right to be informed of the quality, quantity, potency, purity, standard and price of products, and the right to be protected against the marketing of hazardous goods — and makes them justiciable.

Second, it creates a central authority to be known as the Central Consumer Protection Authority, charged with safeguarding the interest of the consumer, thus changing the nature of consumer protection from just giving the consumer a stick to beat the seller or service provider with, to handholding her for the purpose of enforcing her rights.