Chapter 5
Interactive Edition 2025
Consumer rights are an important aspect of how markets function and affect our daily lives. This chapter explores the challenges consumers face, such as unfair practices and weak enforcement of rules, and highlights the importance of being informed and active participants in the consumer movement. Through real-life case histories and examples of organisations protecting consumer interests, students will understand how awareness, legal support, and collective action have helped safeguard consumer rights in India.
This chapter proposes to discuss the issue of consumer rights within the context of the ways markets operate in our country. There are many aspects of unequal situations in a market and poor enforcement of rules and regulations. Hence, there is a need to sensitise learners and encourage them to participate in the consumer movement. This chapter provides case histories — how some consumers were exploited in real life situation and how legal institutions helped consumers in getting compensated and in upholding their rights. The case histories would enable the students to link these narratives to their life experiences. We have to enable students to understand that the awareness of being a well-informed consumer arose out of consumer movement and active participation of people through their struggles over a long period. This chapter also provides details of a few organisations helping consumers in different ways. Finally, it ends with some critical issues of the consumer movement in India.
We participate in the market both as producers and consumers. As producers of goods and services we could be working in any of the sectors discussed earlier such as agriculture, industry, or services. Consumers participate in the market when they purchase goods and services that they need. These are the final goods that people as consumers use. In the preceding chapters we discussed the need for rules and regulations or steps that would promote development.
These could be for the protection of workers in the unorganised sector or to protect people from high interest rates charged by moneylenders in the informal sector. Similarly, rules and regulations are also required for protecting the environment. For example, moneylenders in the informal sector that you read about in Chapter 3 adopt various tricks to bind the borrower: they could make the producer sell the produce to them at a low rate in return for a timely loan; they could force a small farmer like Swapna to sell her land to pay back the loan. Similarly, many people who work in the unorganised sector have to work at a low wage and accept conditions that are not fair and are also often harmful to their health. To prevent such exploitation, we have talked of rules and regulations for their protection. There are organisations that have struggled for long to ensure that these rules are followed.Likewise, rules and regulations are required for the protection of the consumers in the marketplace. Individual consumers often find themselves in a weak position. Whenever there is a complaint regarding a good or service that had been bought, the seller tries to shift all the responsibility on to the buyer. Their position usually is – "If you didn't like what you bought, please go elsewhere".
As if the seller has no responsibility once a sale is completed! The consumer movement, as we shall discuss later, is an effort to change this situation. Exploitation in the marketplace happens in various ways. For example, sometimes traders indulge in unfair trade practices such as when shopkeepers weigh less than what they should or when traders add charges that were not mentioned before, or when adulterated/defective goods are sold. Markets do not work in a fair manner when producers are few and powerful whereas consumers purchase in small amounts and are scattered. This happens especially when large companies are producing these goods. These companies with huge wealth, power and reach can manipulate the market in various ways. At times false information is passed on through the media, and other sources to attract consumers. For example, a company for years sold powder milk for babies all over the world as the most scientific product claiming this to be better than mother's milk. It took years of struggle before the company was forced to accept that it had been making false claims. Similarly, a long battle had to be fought with court cases to make cigarette manufacturing companies accept that their product could cause cancer. Hence, there is a need for rules and regulations to ensure protection for consumers.
The consumer movement arose out of dissatisfaction of the consumers as many unfair practices were being indulged in by the sellers. There was no legal system available to consumers to protect them from exploitation in the marketplace. For a long time, when a consumer was not happy with a particular brand product or shop, he or she generally avoided buying that brand product, or would stop purchasing from that shop. It was presumed that it was the responsibility of consumers to be careful while buying a commodity or service. It took many years for organisations in India, and around the world, to create awareness amongst people. This has also shifted the responsibility of ensuring quality of goods and services on the sellers. In India, the consumer movement as a 'social force' originated with the necessity of protecting and promoting the interests of consumers against unethical and unfair trade practices. Rampant food shortages, hoarding, black marketing, adulteration of food and edible oil gave birth to the consumer movement in an organised form in the 1960s. Till the 1970s, consumer organisations were largely engaged in writing articles and holding exhibitions. They formed consumer groups to look into the malpractices in ration shops and overcrowding in the road passenger transport. More recently, India witnessed an upsurge in the number of consumer groups.
Consumers International - In 1985 United Nations adopted the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection. This was a tool for nations to adopt measures to protect consumers and for consumer advocacy groups to press their governments to do so. At the international level, this has become the foundation for consumer movement. Today, Consumers International has become an umbrella body to over 200 member organisations from over 100 countries.
Because of all these efforts, the movement succeeded in bringing pressure on business firms as well as government to correct business conduct which may be unfair and against the interests of consumers at large. A major step taken in 1986 by the Indian government was the enactment of the Consumer Protection Act 1986, popularly known as COPRA. You will learn more about COPRA later.
India has been observing 24 December as the National Consumers' Day. It was on this day that the Indian Parliament enacted the Consumer Protection Act in 1986. India is one of the countries that have exclusive authority for consumer redressal. The consumer movement in India has made some progress in terms of numbers of organised groups and their activities. There are today more than 2000 consumer groups in the country of which only about 50-60 are well organised and recognised for their work. However, the consumer redressal process is becoming cumbersome, expensive and time consuming. Many a time, consumers are required to engage lawyers. These cases require time for filing and attending the commission proceedings etc. In most purchases cash memos are not issued hence evidence is not easy to gather. Moreover most purchases in the market are small retail sales. The COPRA was amended in the year 2019 to further strengthen consumers in India. Buying through internet is now included. If there is any service deficiency or defective product, service provider or manufacturer is also held responsible and would be penalized or even imprisoned. Settlement of disputes with the help of a neutral intermediary outside the Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, called mediator, is now encouraged at all the three tiers Consumer Commissions. After more than 30 years of the enactment of COPRA, consumer awareness in India is spreading but slowly. Besides this the enforcement of laws that protect workers, especially in the unorganised sectors is weak. Similarly, rules and regulations for working of markets are often not followed. Nevertheless, there is scope for consumers to realise their role and importance. It is often said that consumer movements can be effective only with the consumers' active involvement. It requires a voluntary effort and struggle involving the participation of one and all.
Answer the following True or False questions to test your understanding of consumer rights:
Match the items from Column A with the correct items from Column B:
Answer the following questions to develop your critical thinking about consumer rights: