Consumer Protection Act, 2019

Consumer Protection Act, 2019 is an Act of the Parliament of India. It repeals and replaces the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.
New Act will empower consumers and help them in protecting their rights through its various notified Rules and provisions like Consumer Protection Councils, Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissions, Mediation, Product Liability and punishment for manufacture or sale of products containing adulterant / spurious goods.

Regulator

• The Act includes establishment of the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) to promote, protect and enforce the rights of consumers.
• The CCPA will be empowered to conduct investigations into violations of consumer rights and institute complaints / prosecution, order recall of unsafe goods and services, order discontinuance of unfair
• trade practices and misleading advertisements, impose penalties on manufacturers/endorsers/publishers of misleading advertisements.
• The rules for prevention of unfair trade practice by e-commerce platforms will also be covered under this Act.

Product liability

Claim for product liability can be made against the manufacturer, service provider, and seller. Compensation can be obtained by proving one of the several specified conditions in the Act.

e-commerce Platforms

• Under this act, every e-commerce entity is required to provide information relating to return, refund, exchange, warranty and guarantee, delivery and shipment, modes of payment, grievance redressal mechanism, payment methods, the security of payment methods, charge-back options, etc.
• including country of origin which are necessary for enabling the consumer to make an informed decision at the pre-purchase stage on its platform.
• e-commerce platforms have to acknowledge the receipt of any consumer complaint within forty-eight hours and redress the complaint within one month from the date of receipt under this Act.
• the New Act introduces the concept of product liability and brings within its scope, the product manufacturer, product service provider and product seller, for any claim for compensation.

The Central Consumer Protection Council

• The Central Consumer Protection Council Rules are provided for constitution of the Central Consumer Protection Council, an advisory body on consumer issues, headed by the Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution with the Minister of State as Vice Chairperson and 34 other members from different fields
• The Council, which has a three-year tenure, will have Minister-in-charge of consumer affairs from two States from each region- North, South, East, West, and NER.
• There is also provision for having working groups from amongst the members for specific tasks.

Alternate dispute redressal mechanism

• An Alternate Dispute Resolution mechanism of Mediation has been provided in the new Act.
• Act will simplify the adjudication process.
• A complaint will be referred by a Consumer Commission for mediation, wherever scope for early settlement exists and parties agree for it.
• Mediation will be held in the Mediation Cells to be established under the aegis of the Consumer Commissions.
• There will be no appeal against settlement through mediation.

• As per the Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission Rules, there will be no fee for filing cases upto Rs. 5 lakh.
• There are provisions for filing complaints electronically, credit of amount due to unidentifiable consumers to Consumer Welfare Fund (CWF).
• The State Commissions will furnish information to Central Government on a quarterly asis on vacancies, disposal, pendency of cases and other matters.