Every year 15th of March
is celebrated as National Consumer Rights Day marking the day when Bill for Consumer
Rights were moved in the US Congress. The Consumers International (CI),
recognizes eight rights, which in a logical order reads:
1. Basic Needs
2. Safety
3. Information
4. Choice
5. Representation
6. Redress
7. Consumer Education and
8. Healthy Environment.
However the Consumer Protection Act (COPRA) in 1986 in India recognises only
six of these eight rights:
1.
The right to be protected against marketing of goods and services which are
hazardous to life and property i.e. Right to Safety:
The Consumer Protection Act 1986 defines this right as the ‘right to be
protected against marketing of goods and services which are hazardous to life
and property’. The right are significant in areas of healthcare, food
processing and pharmaceuticals and spans across any domain that could have
impact on consumers health or well being. Violation of this right is mostly in
medical malpractice lawsuits in India. Every year in India not less than
millions of Citizen are killed or severely hurt by unscrupulous practices by
hospitals, doctors, pharmacies and the automobile industry yet the Indian
Government due to its callousness fails to acknowledge this fact or make an
attempt at maintaining statistic of these mishaps. The Government need to have
world class product testing facilities to test drugs, cars, food, and any other
consumable that could potentially be life threatening.
In developed countries such as the United States, stalwart agencies oversee the
safety of consumer product. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for food and
drugs, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for
automobiles and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for all other
consumer products, just to name a few. This right requires each product that
could potentially endanger our lives to be marketed only after sufficient and
complete independent verification and validation.
2.
The right to be informed about the quality, quantity, potency, purity, standard
and price of goods or services, as the case may be, so as to protect the
consumer against unfair trade practices:
This consumer right is defined as the ‘the right to be informed about the
quality, quantity, potency, purity, standard and price of goods or services, as
the case may be so as to protect the consumer against unfair trade practices’
in the Consumer Protection Act of 1986. In the Indian market place, consumers
get consumer information through two popular, yet unreliable means, namely
advertising and word of mouth. Due to this, the consumers in India seldom have
accurate and complete information to assess the true value, suitability, safety
or reliability of any product. Mostly we find out hidden costs, lack of
suitability, safety hazards and quality problems only after we have purchased
the product. Another right again trumpeted by our government on paper, this
right should ideally ensure that all consumable products are labelled in a
standard manner which contains the cost, the ingredients, quantity, and
instructions on how to safely consume the product. Unfortunately, even the
medicines in India do not follow a standard labelling convention. Unit price
publishing standards need to be established for consumer market places where
costs are shown in standard units such as per kilogram, or per litre. We, as consumers,
should be informed in a precise yet accurate manner of the costs involved when
availing a loan. For benefit to the society from this right, advertisers should
be held against the product standards in the advertisements, pharmaceuticals
need to disclose potential side effects about their drugs, and manufacturers
should be required to publish reports from independent product testing
laboratories regarding the comparison of the quality of their products with
competitive products, just to name a few.
3.
The right to be assured, wherever possible, of access to a variety of goods and
services at competitive prices:
Consumer Protection Act, 1986 defines this right as ‘the right to be assured,
wherever possible, to have access to a variety of goods and services at
competitive prices’. Competition, invariably, is the best regulator of a market
place. Existence of oligopolies, cartels and monopolies are counterproductive
to consumerism. Our natural resources, telecommunications, liquor industry,
airlines have all been controlled by a mafia at some point. Coming from a
socialistic background, tolerance of monopolistic market forces are ingrained
in the blood of Indian Consumers. It is not very often we can say we are going
to switch the power company, when we have a blackout at home! Interestingly,
even micro markets such as the fish vendors in particular cities have known to
collude to drain the bargaining power of the consumers. In any size, any form,
or any span, collusion of companies selling a similar type of product is
unethical, less illegal. India has about 20 years more of stride to empower our
citizens fully in this right.
4.
The right to be heard and to be assured that consumers' interests will receive
due consideration at appropriate forums: According to the
Consumer Protection Act 1986, ‘the right to be heard and to be assured that
consumer's interests will receive due consideration at appropriate forums’ is
referred to as the right to be heard. This right is supposed to empower Indian
consumers to fearlessly voice their complaints and concerns against products
and companies to ensure their issues are handled efficiently and expeditiously.
However, to date the Government of India has not created a single outlet for
the consumers to be heard or their opinions to be voiced. If a consumer makes
an allegation about a product, the onus is on the dealer, manufacturer or
supplying company to disprove that the allegation is false. In other words, the
consumer is heard, and the burden of proof rests with the company. Feeble
attempts have been made by the government to empower our citizens with this
right.
5.
The right to seek redressal against unfair trade practices or restrictive trade
practices or unscrupulous exploitation of consumers:
The right ‘to seek redressal against unfair trade practices or restrictive
trade practices or unscrupulous exploitation of consumers’ is defined as the
right to redressal in the Consumer Protection Act 1986. The Indian Government
has been slightly more successful with respect to this right. Consumer courts
such as District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forums at the district level,
State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissions and National Consumer Disputes
Redressal Commissions have been established through the consumer protection
act. Each of these consumer grievance redressal agencies has fiduciary and
geographical jurisdictions to address consumer cases between consumers and
businesses. Consumer cases less than 20 lakhs are heard in the district
consumer forum, between 20 lakhs and one crore are heard in the state consumer
court and cases more than one crore are heard in the national consumer court.
On paper these sound nice; but hold on before you rejoice. Once started as the
guardians of consumer protection and consumer rights in India, these courts
have today been rendered ineffective due to bureaucratic sabotages, callousness
of the government, clogged cases and decadent infrastructure. Very few of the
district forums have officials appointed in a timely manner, and most of them
are non-operational due to lack of funding and infrastructure. Estimates put
the open legal cases in India at 20-30 million, which will approximately take
320 years to close. With the legal system in this manner compromised, consumer
cases that form mere civil litigations will be pushed down the bottom of the
priority list.
6.
The right to consumer education:
The right of each Indian citizen to be educated on matters related to consumer
protection and about his/her rights is the last right given by the Consumer
Protection Act 1986. This right simply ensures that the consumers in India have
access to informational programs and materials that would enable them to make
better purchasing decisions. Consumer education may mean both formal education
through school and college curriculums and also consumer awareness campaigns
run by both governmental and non governmental agencies (NGO). Consumer NGOs,
with little support from the Indian government, primarily undertake the ardent
task of ensuring this consumer right around the country.
