Unit 4: Consumer protection and IT law

The syllabus names the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 — it has been replaced by the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 (in force from 20 July 2020). Both are explained below.

Objectives

• Protect consumers against unfair trade practices, defective goods and deficient services.
• Provide simple, speedy and inexpensive redressal.
• Establish consumer councils and redressal agencies.

Consumer rights

Features

• Consumer: a person who buys goods or hires services for consideration, not for resale or commercial purpose; under the 2019 Act includes online and teleshopping buyers.
• Complaints about unfair or restrictive trade practices, defects, deficiency in service, excess price, hazardous goods.
• Three-tier quasi-judicial redressal machinery.
• 2019 Act additions: Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA), product liability, e-commerce rules, mediation, e-filing, penalties for misleading advertisements and endorsements, complaint can be filed where the complainant resides.

Structure of redressal agencies

• Consumer Protection Councils at central, state and district levels promote consumer rights.

• Unfair trade practice (Section 2(47), CPA 2019): adopting unfair or deceptive methods to promote sale — false representation of quality or standard, false claims of sponsorship or approval, misleading prices, bait advertising, false offers of gifts and prizes, selling non-standard goods, hoarding, manufacturing spurious goods, not issuing bills, refusing to take back defective goods, disclosing personal data.
• Restrictive trade practice (Section 2(41)): trade practices that manipulate price or conditions of delivery to impose unjustified costs — tie-up sales, delay in supply leading to price rise.
• Misleading advertisements: CCPA can impose penalties up to ₹10 lakh (₹50 lakh for repeat) on manufacturers and endorsers; endorsers can be barred.

• India's law for electronic commerce, electronic governance and cyber crime; based on the UNCITRAL Model Law (1996); amended in 2008.
• Digital signature (Section 3): authentication using asymmetric crypto system and hash function — a key pair (private key to sign, public key to verify).
• Electronic signature (Section 3A): includes digital signatures and other notified techniques (Aadhaar e-sign).
• Digital Signature Certificate (DSC): issued by a Certifying Authority licensed by the Controller of Certifying Authorities (CCA).

• Cyber offences: tampering with source code (Section 65), computer-related offences (66), identity theft (66C), cheating by personation (66D), cyber terrorism (66F), obscene content (67); Section 43 — compensation for unauthorised access and damage; Section 79 — intermediary safe harbour subject to due diligence (IT Rules, 2021).
• Adjudication: adjudicating officers; appeals to the TDSAT (Cyber Appellate Tribunal merged in 2017).
• Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 now governs personal data processing.

• Patents: non-patentable — discoveries, frivolous inventions, mere new uses of known substances (Section 3(d) — Novartis case, 2013), traditional knowledge; compulsory licensing (Section 84 — Natco v. Bayer, 2012).
• Infringement remedies: injunctions, damages or account of profits, seizure; criminal penalties for trademark and copyright infringement.