Adrita Misra, LLM, Royal School of Law and Administration (RSLA), Royal Global University, Guwahati, Assam
ABSTRACT
Indian Consumer Protection Act 1986 which was once enacted to provide timely relief to consumers affected with defective products and deficient services, apart from providing both legal as well as institutional framework for protection of consumer’s rights came under criticism for being ineffective on certain fronts. On the other hand, increase in the cases of unfair trade practices. The Government of India enacted Consumer protection Act 2019 to provide enhanced protection to the consumers taking into consideration the booming e-commerce industry and the modern methods of providing goods and services such as online sales, tele-shopping, direct selling and multi-level marketing in addition to the traditional methods. The main highlight of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 is that it establishes a Central Consumer Protection Authority which acts as a regulatory body to “promote, protect, enforce consumer rights as a class.” A clear shift from Caveat emptor (let the buyer be aware) to Caveat venditor (let the seller be aware) can be seen in the new provisions as the unfair trade practices and fraud done by the seller will now be penalized. The objective of this article is to evaluate and discuss the certain changes which have been made under this Act as compared to its old counterpart. The new Act provide a simple and quick solution to consumers for their grievances against any deficiency in services or defects in goods.
Keywords: Consumer Protection Act 2019, E- commerce, Consumer, Complaint, Product liability, Service Providers.
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