International Journal of Management (IJM)

Volume 11, Issue 11, November 2020, pp. 2412-2417. Article ID: IJM_11_11_224
Available online at http://www.iaeme.com/ijm/issues.asp?JType=IJM&VType=11&IType=11
Journal Impact Factor (2020): 10.1471 (Calculated by GISI) www.jifactor.com
ISSN Print: 0976-6502 and ISSN Online: 0976-6510
DOI: 10.34218/IJM.11.11.2020.224

© IAEME Publication Scopus Indexed

UNDERSTANDING CONSUMER RIGHTS AND

RESPONSIBILITIES THROUGH CONSUMER
PROTECTION ACT 2019
Dr Mrinal Ghosh
Assistant Professor, Pune Institute of Business Management,
Guwahati Campus, India

Dr Kabin Sarma
Assistant Professor, Department of Management,
RG Baruah College, India

ABSTRACT
The Constitution prescribes certain Directive Principles of State Policy which are
fundamental to the governance of the country. And it’s the duty of the state to strive
for the welfare of its people by securing and protecting the interest of the society and
individual in particular. The reference of protection and promotion of the individual
rights and welfare in the Constitution of our country makes it also imperative to
provide welfare to the consumers and client.
The Consumer Protection movement in India began with the enactment of the
Consumer Protection Act 1986. The objective of this act was to protect the rights of
the consumers in the purchase of the goods and availing services. Consumer
protection is not a new concept in India. It was written in our ancient texts as said by
our honorable Prime Minister in his speech at the recently held international
conference on consumer protection in New Delhi.
A consumer can be cheated or exploited by the seller in many ways viz; by giving
wrong or incomplete information about the product, by charging excess money, by
providing low quality goods etc. These unfair trade practices can harm the consumers
monetarily and can bring health hazards in many ways. The government has
introduced many standards for checking of goods and services like the ISI mark,
Halmark for jewellery, Silkmark for silk products and the RERA which is meant for
safeguarding the consumers from malpractices in the real estate sector. The objective
of the study is to explore the rights available to the consumers under the new
Consumer Protection Act 2019. The study also aimed at finding the status of the
consumer cases filed at various consumers forums and to make a comparative
analysis of both the acts. The study is descriptive in nature.

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 Understanding Consumer Rights and Responsibilities through Consumer Protection Act 2019

Key words: Consumer Protection Act, Consumer Rights, Consumer Awareness.

Cite this Article: Mrinal Ghosh and Kabin Sarma, Understanding Consumer Rights
and Responsibilities through Consumer Protection Act 2019, International Journal of
Management, 11(11), 2020, pp 2412-2417.
http://www.iaeme.com/IJM/issues.asp?JType=IJM&VType=11&IType=11

1. INTRODUCTION
The National Consumer Day is observed on 24th of December every year. This day is
dedicated to depict the importance of consumers in an economy vis-a-vis society. The
consumers should be very much aware of its rights and responsibilities. With the advent of the
technology, e-commerce businesses, smart phones and cloud technology the Indian
consumers has gone through drastic changes over the period of time.
Consumer protection is not a new concept in India. It was written in our ancient texts as
said by our honorable Prime Minister in his speech at the recently held international
conference on consumer protection in New Delhi. In his speech he has mentioned that around
2500 years ago during the era of Kautilya there were guidelines regarding how trade should
be governed and at the same time the interests of the consumers are also protected.
When someone buys any product the first thing that one checks is the price of the product.
The obvious reason behind this is the budget behind its purchase. Along with the price there
are many other significant information provided in the face of the product box such as product
durability, its weight, its expiry, the list of ingredients the product contains, etc. But we hardly
bother about these information. This is where the consumer awareness needs. A consumer can
be cheated or exploited by the seller in many ways viz; by giving wrong or incomplete
information about the product, by charging excess money, by providing low quality goods etc.
These unfair trade practices can harm the consumers monetarily and can bring health hazards
in many ways.
The government has introduced many standards for checking of goods and services like
the ISI mark, Haalmark for jewellery, Silkmark for silk products and the RERA which is
meant for safeguarding the consumers from malpractices in the real estate sector. Apart from
these the government has also introduced the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) schemes meant
to block the leakages affecting the interest of the real beneficiaries.
In the present era of globalization and competition every manufacturer tries to maximize
profits and to sustain thereby. Therefore they resort to many kind of unfair trade practices in
the form of misleading advertisements and marketing compromising the interest of the
consumers. Therefore it’s very important that the consumers should be aware about the goods
or services that they are purchasing to protect their own interest.
The Consumer Protection movement in India began with the enactment of the Consumer
Protection Act 1986. The objective of this act was to protect the rights of the consumers in the
purchase of the goods and availing services. It is equally necessary for the consumers to be
aware of the mechanisms available for redressal in case of grievances. There are various
forums like Lok Adalat, District Forums, State Consumer Forum and the National Dispute
Redressal Authority where the affected consumers can approach for redressal. An individual
as a consumer enjoys the following rights.

2. CONSUMER RIGHTS
1) Right to Safety: Consumers have the right to be protected against marketing of goods and
services which are hazardous to life and property. If any particular goods and services are

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 Mrinal Ghosh and Kabin Sarma

hazardous to life and property then the consumers should be properly informed about the
mode of usage of it.
2) Right to Information: Consumers enjoy the every right to be informed about the quality,
quantity, potency, purity, standard and price of services or goods with a view to protect the
consumers against unfair trade practices. The consumers should be provided adequate
information so that they may choose the product according to their convenience and fitness of
their use.
3) Right to Choose: Consumers also enjoy the liberty to choose from a variety products
available at their disposal at competitive prices. Moreover fair competition must be promoted
so as to provide wide range of services or goods at competitive prices to the consumers.
4) Right to be Heard: Under the Consumer Protection Act 1986, consumers also enjoy the
right to be heard if anything goes wrong against him. They enjoy the liberty that if something
goes against them their interest will receive due care in the appropriate consumer forum.
5) Right to Redressal: If the consumer has suffered any kind of loss or injury due to unfair
trade practices and allegations made in the complaint have been proved in the appropriate
forum will indemnify and compensate the loss.
6) Right to Education: This right informs the consumer about the practice prevalent in the
market and the remedies available to them in case of loss or any injury. For spreading this
awareness, media or school curriculum is also exercised as medium.
Grounds of Filling a Complaint: A person can file a complaint on any one of the following
grounds:
1) An Unfair Trade Practices (UTP) or Restrictive Trade Practices (RTP) adopted by any
trader or service provider.
2) Any defect in the goods sold.
3) Any deficiency in the services provided.
4) Overcharging of prices fixed under the law displayed in the package or on the price list or
agreed between the buyer and the seller and;
5) Offering of any hazardous goods or service.
The forums where complaints can be filed are:
a) District Forum: If the price of the product or the service and the compensation demanded
is upto Rs 20 lakh.
b) State Commission: If the price of the product or the service and the compensation
demanded exceeds Rs 20 lakh but does not exceed Rs 1 Crore.
c) National Commission: If the price of the product or the service and the compensation
demanded exceed Rs 1 Crore.
The procedure for filing a complaint is very easy. A written complaint along with
stipulated fees needs to be filed by the consumer or by his authorized representative along
with supporting documents viz, cash memo, warranty card, etc. And the relief sought by the
complainant also needs to be specified in the application by the complainant himself. And
after the completion of the hearing process the consumer forum may issue one or more of the
following directions:
a) The court may direct the seller to remove the defects from the goods sold and deficiency
from the services provided.
b) The court may direct the seller for the replacement of defective goods.
c) The seller might also be required to refund the price to the consumer as per the court
directives.

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 Understanding Consumer Rights and Responsibilities through Consumer Protection Act 2019

d) The seller or the manufacturer might also be required to pay compensation to the buyer for
the loss or injury suffered by him/her.
e) The court may direct to pay the consumer for punitive damages wherever it deems
appropriate.
f) If the goods were of hazardous in nature, the seller might be required to withdraw the goods
as per the court ruling.
Analysis of the cases disposed by Consumer Courts: The objective behind the formation of
these courts was to provide inexpensive and speedy redressal to consumers. According to the
data available from the Department of Consumer Affairs it can be seen that more than 4 lakhs
of cases are still pending in the courts, which is a very alarming figure.

Table 1 Total Number of Cases Disposed by Consumer Forum since Inception: (15.11.2020)
Serial Name of Cases Filed Cases Cases % of Remarks
No: Agency Since Inception Disposed off Pending Disposal
Since
Inception
1 National 1,32,596 1,11,597 20,999 84.16% -
Commission
2 State 94,3620 8,18,719 1,24,901 86.76% -
Commission
3 District 43,01,258 39,59,149 3,42,109 92.05% -
Commission
TOTAL 53,77,474 48,89,465 4,88,009 90.92% -
Source: www.ncdrc.nic.in

3. AN ANALYSIS OF THE SHORTCOMINGS OF THE CONSUMER

PROTECTION ACT 1986
a) The Consumer Protection Act 1986 failed to address the rapid changes in consumer market
places. Section 13 states that every complaint shall be heard expeditiously as possible and
endeavor made to dispose of complaint within a period of three months and five months if it
requires testing of commodities. But it has been observed that due to heavy piling up of cases
and frequent adjournments, delays in justice are taking place.
b) The consumer forums are overburdened with lots of pending cases and because of which
the buyer seller contract seems to be tilted towards the seller. Further the procedures are
becoming more expensive and time consuming.
c) The presidents and the members of the consumer courts are said to be backbone of the
consumer dispute redressal system. They play a significant role in upholding the faith of the
sellers and buyers. But it has been observed that more than 400 posts of presidents and
members in various consumers’ forums are lying vacant.
d) Many consumer forums are functioning with inexperienced staffs deputed from other
departments. It’s very necessary to provide intensive training to these members before
engaging them into the job.
e) There has been a lack of proper co- ordination among the presidents and the members of
consumer commissions for timely adjudication of cases and quite often around ten or fifteen
adjournments are allowed.
f) The presidents are not empowered with take up action against the sellers for misleading
advertisements which affected a sizeable number of consumer population.

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 Mrinal Ghosh and Kabin Sarma

4. SOME OF THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE CONSUMER PROTECTION

ACT 2019
a) The definition of Consumer would include both offline and online consumer who
purchases through electronic means or by tele shopping or direct selling or multi level
marketing.
b) The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has been established to promote,
protect and enforce the rights of the consumers against unfair trade practices and to initiate
appropriate action whenever necessary.
c) The monetary jurisdiction of the adjudicatory bodies has been increased. In case of District
Commission it has been increased upto Rs 1 Crore, for State Commission between Rs 1 Crore
to Rs 10 Crores and for the National Commission it is above Rs 10 Crores.
d) The Bill also enlists punitive action against those who are found to be involved in
manufacturing, storing, distributing selling or importing products that are hazardous to life
and contains adulterants.
e) Provision for mediation as an Alternate Dispute resolution mechanism with an objective to
resolve the consumer grievances through mediation, thus making the process less
cumbersome, simple and quicker.
f) Several provisions has been made for simplifying the consumer dispute adjudication
process which includes the increase of the minimum number of members of the consumer
forum for quick disposal of the complaints, power to review the orders given by the district
and the state commission, constitution of the circuit bench for quick disposal of the
complaints, reforming the process of the appointment of the president and the members, etc.

5. CONCLUSION
There were lots of changes and developments in the parlance of consumer protection. The
CPA has provided an organizational structure to protect the consumer rights and
responsibilities. Now a large number of voluntary organizations have also come up. This law
has emerged because of the relentless reform being done and as a result we can see the
handing over a large number of cases by the consumer forums and the Supreme Court of
India.
There are significant challenges faced by the online buyers such as breach of data privacy,
security issues, sale of duplicate products, etc. With regard to misleading advertisements by
the sellers the Central Protection Council, State Protection Council and the District Protection
Council do not have any sup mot over this. However, they initiate action only after complaint
being filed by the consumer. The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) functions
similarly with the Federal Trade Commission of the USA and thus investigate into the
consumer grievances.
The Consumer Protection Act 1986 does not address the recent challenges faced by the
consumers with the new change in the mode of business operations. Therefore, it was felt to
replace the Consumer Protection Act 1986 with the new Consumer Protection Act 2019. The
new Consumer Protection Act 2019 with its contemporary changes would help in
strengthening consumers and provide justice to the aggrieved in time.

REFERENCES
[1] Aggarwal, V. K. (2015). Consumer Protection: Law and Practice. Delhi: Bharat Law House.
[2] Ganeshan, G., & Sumathy, M. (2012). Globalization and Consumerism: Issues and
Challenges. Regal Publications.

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 Understanding Consumer Rights and Responsibilities through Consumer Protection Act 2019

[3] Kapoor, S. (2019, December). Consumer Protection Act, 2019: A New Milestone in
Empowering Customers. Yojana , pp. 53- 56.
[4] Misra, S. (2017). Is the Indian Consumer Protected? . One India One People .
[5] Srivastava, A. K. (2017, December). Consumer Protection: Sine Qua Non for Good
Governance. Yojana , pp. 7-12.
[6] Verma, D. S. (2017, December). Consumer Protection in India: Genesis ad Recent
Developments. Yojana , pp. 13- 18.
[7] www.consumeraffairs.nic.in.
[8] www.ncrdc.nic.in.

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