- PARIN SHAH
New Consumer Protection Law is only effective and beneficial for this country when it changes the mindsets of the people in the market.
Mahatma Gandhi once said that “A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by providing us with an opportunity to do so”. The digital age has ushered and immensely grown in a fresh new era of e-commerce and brought new customer expectations.
Digitization has given simple access, an enormous assortment of decisions improved administrations and, shopping according to accommodation. Be that as it may, along the development path it has faced repercussions identified with customer safety. Remembering this and to address the new arrangement of difficulties looked by buyers in the computerized age, the Indian Parliament, on 6 August 2019, passed the landmark Consumer Protection Bill, 2019 which intends to give fruitful settlement of customer struggles. The Consumer Protection Act, 2019[1] (New Act) got the consent of the President of India and was distributed in the official journal on 9 August 2019. The New Act attempts to supersede the more than thirty years old Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (Act).
You’re a buyer. If in the event that you are perusing this article, you are a customer[2]. You have bought a telephone, a PC or, whatever gadget you are seeing this on, you have purchased a web association and have paid for the power which is charging the gadget you are utilizing to peruse this article. You are an aspect of the general public, and in this way are additionally a purchaser of the market that naturally exists in current society. People are not self-reasonable, they depend on one another which shapes the premise of society, and with society, there likewise exists a market. So being an aspect of that framework, makes you a customer. When are you a client? What brings you inside the ambit of a client? The appropriate response lies in The Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
The Consumer Protection Act, 1986[3] was sanctioned in compatibility with the significance of the interests of the buyers. While trying to protect the interests of the shoppers, the lawmaking body presented to the different rights and implemented these rights.
The progress from ‘Purchaser beware’ to ‘Buyer is the ruler’ in these 34 years has been properly reflected in the new Act by the mode of arrangements at pace with the fast advancement of business for example internet business and rise of worldwide trade.
In a layman’s language, the amendment are only laws to secure the involvement of customers against the acts of negligence of the dealers which incorporate a portion of the essential rights like The Right to be Informed, Right to Protection, Right to be Heard, Right to Safety and numerous others.
A significant perspective that comes in the picture is that the Act gives rights to the buyer where the most significant is that of the Right to be Informed regarding the nature of commodities accessible on the lookout, the innovation utilized and, the administrative arrangements in regards to the creation and disposal of such products.
In a nation where 60% of the GDP is from the administrative service sector, the guideline of this is a need. For a seller, he will deliver the merchandise which gives him the greatest benefits even it is risky to the society and will quit creating them when he comes to think about the laws that disallow them and the punishments thereof. This might be feasible if the data is spread to both the buyers and the sellers regarding the privileges of the former and the laws overseeing the creation of unsafe products. Witnessing the universe of hoax news and the current Consumer Protection Act, accomplishing this degree of particularly seller education and training gives off an impression of being a major undertaking achievement in the economy. Section 84 of the Act expresses that the producer will be unprotected from the law for any fault in assembling or quality of the goods, carelessness or misrepresentation proven largely with respect to him.
Customers can anticipate that their life should get simpler with the new Consumer Protection Rules of 2020 for web-based business which says gateways can’t charge cancellation expenses if a buyer decides to drop a request following to affirming the buy. As indicated by the regulatory bodies, this will give ‘better-characterized’ capacity to buyers to go to court in the event of questions identified with the online business, remembering for fake items.
There is an Alternate Dispute Resolution Mechanism of Mediation likewise where A grievance will be touched by a Consumer Commission for intervention, any chances for early settlement for it and according to the Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission Rules, there will be no expense for recording cases equal to Rupees 5,00,000/ - therefore not feeding the vendors stomachs.
In this day and age, data and information resemble oxygen without which nobody can exist. We can say that The Consumer Protect Act, 2019, the way toward drafting was begun in 2010, is probably the sincerest advance taken by the government for upgrading consumer rights. The new Act addresses numerous angles, for example, Mediation and E-business which the world was clueless about in 1986. The new Act has taken due accord of not just the lacunae present in the previous customer laws yet furthermore the market elements and has appropriately presented a total change in the buyer framework as:
1. Structural Reforms by presenting Mediation for quick removal of cases and upgrading monetary purview of the administrations
2. Societal Reforms by forcing stricter punishments to act as preventive and holding merchants at each level at risk for their wrong doings.
The new Act is surely the need of great importance and certainly encouraging in its nature.
Parin Shah is a second year student at Pravin Gandhi College of Law, Mumbai.
(shahparin03@gmail.com)
[1] The new Consumer Protection Act, 2019 came into force on 20th July 2020 and it will empower consumers and help them in protecting their rights through its various notified rules and provisions. The new act will be swift and less time consuming compared to the older Consumer Protection Act, 1986 in which single-point access to justice was given making it a time-consuming exercise.
[2] Under section 2(7) of the Act, it is stated that consumer is anyone who:
Buys any goods for a consideration which has been paid or promised or partly paid and partly promised, or under any system of deferred payment and includes any user of such goods other than the person who buys such goods for consideration paid or promised or partly paid or partly promised, or under any system of deferred payment, when such use is made with the approval of such person but does not include a person who obtains such goods for resale or any commercial purpose. [3] The Consumer Protection Act,1986 (68 of 1986).