Rights of Consumers : Strengthening Consumer Sovereignty
Author: Arundhuti Chakraborty
Durgapur Institute Of Legal Studies
Introduction
Consumer rights are the most integral rights to purchase goods and services. Just as fundamental rights are guaranteed by the Indian Constitution, consumer rights are also guaranteed by the Consumer Protection Act. Before we get into this concept let us just go through a quote which says, “every time you spend money, you are casting a vote, for the kind of world you want”. This quote means, every time you spend money for buying anything, you are actually depicting your choices and preferences which ultimately designs the world that you want in your surroundings.
Consumer rights ensure fairness among markets and protect the consumers from unlawful exploitation. Besides other laws, consumer rights are also very important. It plays a key role to build trust between consumers and business holders. India and other countries recognize the need of this law and they make various policies, provisions over this right. The Consumer Protection Act gives an ability to empower rights of every individual. In this article we will learn about the rights of consumers, its importance and a bit knowledge about this law. So, let’s start.
History of Consumer Protection Act:
The history of consumer protection act traced from ancient time to landmark act of 1986 and 2019. It leads the concept of buyers beware and sellers beware. In ancient period the weights of products were not measured due to which consumer had to face unfairness and many difficulties. But at the time of Kautilya i.e., modern empire era, weights and measures are fixed uniformly. This endeavor is made to give equal access to every consumer. In Kautilya’s Arthashastra, this uniform measurement is mentioned.
In 1290-1320 CE, i.e., mediaeval era of India, Sultan Alauddin Khalji implemented strict market rules to curb profiteering and inflation in the market by setting price controls and using a network of spies to monitor markets. The modern consumer movements were started from1960s to protect consumers from unethical practices such as rampant food shortage, black marketing, adulteration of food, unfair market policies. By these dissatisfactions, consumers in India came up for a demand of specific rights for consumers to protect the larger public interest from such exploitations. These movements were supported by government awareness campaigns like “Jago Grahak Jago” and Voluntary consumer Organizations.
After these all kind of issues and movements some contemporary acts were made at that time such as, Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 and Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1964. And finally, after these acts The Consumer Protection Act, 1986 was enacted with the reason of safeguarding consumer rights and to prevent market unfairness. The Consumer Protection Act 1986, is a pioneering piece of legislation with a notable exception of Jammu & Kashmir. However, over the changing consumer landscape and the advent of e-commerce necessitated significant update to consumer laws, leading to the formulation of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
The Consumer Protection Act 1986 was replaced by Consumer Protection Bill 2019, which was introduced in Loksabha by the minister of food and public distribution, and consumer affairs Mr. Ram Paswan on 8th of July 2019. The basic aim of The Consumer Protection Act 2019 is to promote and protect the consumers interest through inexpensive and quick redressal of the grievances. The act is applicable in India to all business types whether they are traders or manufacturer or whether they supplying goods or providing services.
Who is Consumer ?
According section-2(7) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 the legal definition of this term is- “ A Consumer is a person who buys goods or avails services for a consideration, which includes any payment made, promised, partly promised or under a deferred payment system, or any user of the goods or beneficiary of the services who uses them with buyer’s approval and cannot use for resale or for any commercial purposes.”
Consumers are the soul of economy and they help a lot to build the economy stronger. Consumers make demands and these demands fulfilled through productions. If there is no demand from consumers then production of goods is waste. So, the production which takes place into various manufacturing units, is only for consumer’s demanding that. So, the definition of consumer is larger and its role in economic market is larger.
Rights of Consumers:
In 1962 The American President John F. Kennedy introduced a bill of rights on parliament which is particularly known as consumer bill of rights and after the approval of such bill by the American Parliament the entire act was enacted. At that time, it had four rights of consumers i.e., Right to Choice, Right to Information, Right to be Safety & Right to be Heard. Later on, there were three rights added i.e., Right to Consumer Education, Right to Healthy Environment, Right to Basic Needs, were added for ensuring this law more. And all these rights are all along the world in some or the other way have almost similar rights.
In Indian legislature as per Section-2(9) of the Consumer Protection Act 2019, ensures six rights for consumers. Those are:
I) Right to Safety:
Right to safety says about protection from any hazardous product, service or property which can be threat to life. The purchased goods and services availed of should not meet their immediate need only but also fulfil the long term interests. So, before purchasing any goods a consumer should look after not only with the quantity of the product but also the quality of the product with some sort of guaranty or warranty.
II) Right to be Informed:
Right to be informed states the information that a consumer should know about the product or service before purchased. It means that a consumer has the right to be informed about the quality, quantity, potency, purity, standard and price of the goods so as to protect the consumer from unfair trade practices. While purchasing any goods or avails any services a consumer should ask or insist to get all the information and the seller or the service provider is bound to give all the information which a consumer want to know.
III) Right to Choice:
This act guarantees consumers the freedom to choose from the variety of products or services at a competitive price. This provision influences fairness in market and removes coercion or monopolistic behaviour from the market. It gives assurance of satisfactory quantity at a fair price and it also includes right to basic goods and services.
IV) Right to be Heard:
This right ensures consumer’s interest will receive due consideration at appropriate forums. That means every dispute which is related with consumer law can be heard fully in an appropriate forum to seek redressal or consumer grievances or for the well being of the consumers. And also, if a consumer faces any problem after purchasing a good then the person has the right to ask the seller about selling defective product. It has the right of consumer to be heard for any kind of defective product or deficiency in service.
V) Right to Seek Redressal:
Consumers have the right to seek remedies for grievances they faced while purchasing a product. Redressal includes compensation or replacement of defective goods or services. This provision protects the consumer from unlawful exploitation or any undue advantage. It promotes transparency and accountability to the fair judgement. This right also prevents unfair trade practices and anti-competitive agreements in the market. A consumer can seek redressal as per this right in various forums such as, National Commission, Sate Commission & District Commission and can demand compensation for the loss. Moreover, it has the right of every individual as a consumer to make complaint for the genuine grievances.
VI) Right to Consumer Education:
This provision emphasizes the importance of consumer awareness, ensuring that consumers were informed about their rights and responsibilities. Every consumer should know about what they are purchased and if there any violation of right is happen then they should go for consumer council to lodge complaints. The right to consumer education says that every consumer should possess some knowledge about consumer laws and remedies for any kind of infringement of their rights. Due to lack of knowledges the rural consumers are exploit many times, so it’s very necessary to educate them about their rights and responsibilities as a consumer and must exercise them. Only real consumer protection will be achieved then.
Importance of Rights Consumer:
Consumer rights play an important role to make the market place equitable, fair, ethical. Without rights, buyers may face wrong advertisement, mislead with deficiency in service and can be face fraud. That’s why the consumers rights are very important to promote transparency, accountability in business and prove them toward quality goods and services.
Here are some importance of consumer rights that would need to know:
• Consumer rights in India have to be implemented due to prevent unfair trade practices. Most business would look forward with fraudulent, counterfeit with defective product, false advertisement, mislead consumers are seen everywhere. These problems are such a wide range that without the rights of consumer these problems cannot be resolved.
• Consumer rights are important to prevent anti-competitive agreements from the market. Because anti-competitive agreements cause higher prices, reducing quality of products, and variety and limiting choices. These agreements stifle the innovation and create unfair trade practices which can lead consumer exploit. Price fixing, share markets, limit supply r bid rigging, such practices may lead unfair trade practices by which consumer have to pay more for fewer options or for low quality.
• Unlike anti-competitive agreements there is another thing which can create unfair trade practice and i.e., Abuse of Dominant Position. In competition law dominant position is lawful if it is fair but when it becomes abusive then it becomes unfair which violates the rights of consumers as well as the business holders. The abusive of dominant position create barriers to other market players which violates their one of fundamental right which is right of fair trade practice. And by this unfaireness consumer’s rights also harmed. So, besides competition law consumer rights are also important to prevent all these issues and protect the consumer’s interest.
• If consumers know about their rights and remedies then can take action according that against exploitations. It will stabilize the market and can make a sustainable and trustworthy environment which is good for businesses and it can help to focus on the welfare of the consumers.
• If there will some rights of consumers and it will ensure and recognise by the proper laws and provisions and have some sort of punishments or compensations, then business holders will have the fear to avoid any kind of unethical strategies to harm the consumers. Because these rights restrict business holders making money in an unethical way.
• Consumers laws or consumer rights promote accountability, transparency in the market and make market players more responsible for making a healthy and good and most importantly a trustworthy environment in the market for consumers.
Landmark Judgements on Consumer’ s Rights:
Poonam Verma vs. Ashwini Patel & Ors.
Fact:
In this case the respondent, a homeopathic doctor prescribed allopathic medicine to a patient and after not responding to the treatment the patient had died.
Judgement:
The Supreme Court held in this case that practicing allopathic medicine without registration or proper knowledge or qualification as required by the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 was a violation of statutory duty and deficiency in service as per the consumer protection act which violates the right to be safety right as per consumer protection law and also deemed actionable negligence. The court ordered the respondent to pay 3 lakhs as compensation for such act.
National Insurance Company Ltd. Vs/ Hindustan Safety Glass Works Ltd. & Anr.
Fact:
Hindustan Safety Glass Works Ltd. filed a complaint against the national insurance company for denying the compensation for damage caused by heavy rain. The insurance company denied relief based on the policy that claims will be made within 12 months of the event. The petitioner approached the National forum under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.
Judgement:
The National Commission held in this point that the claims were actionable and the goods were insured at the time of the incident. The insurance company was ordered to pay 21,05,803.89 with 9% interest per annum.
Conclusion:
In this article we can say more information about consumer law i.e., World Consumer Rights Day celebrates on 15th March every year to raise global awareness about consumer rights and needs. This day was started celebrating from 1962 after an inspired speech given by U.S President John F. Kennedy. He was the global leader who addressed such law for the welfare of consumers. In Indian legislature, Consumer Protection Act empowers consumers with clearly defined rights on section-2(9).
It fosters a safer and equitable marketplace by understanding and exercising these rights. Also, understanding the importance of consumer provisions not only to avoid unfairness but also to have the right knowledge about the product or services. Therefore, all consumer should aware and should possess knowledge about this law for protect their rights. Consumer protection Act, 2019 represents a landmark in consumer law while addressing modern challenges and establishing stronger consumer rights.
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