Consumer Protection Act, 1986

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Consumer
Any person who buys any commodity or service or is a user
of such commodity or service is known as consumer.
Any person must satisfy two conditions to claim himself as a
consumer :1) The service must have been rendered to him.
2)He must have paid or promised to pay for the same.

Consumer Protection Act, 1986

The Consumer Protection Act, 1986 is a benevolent social
legislation.
The first and the only Act of its kind in India, it has enabled
ordinary consumers to secure less expensive and often speedy
redressal of their grievances.
Act applies to whole of India except Jammu and Kashmir.

Objectives of the act

Provides for promotion and
protection of the rights of the
consumers
Provide remedies for deceived
consumers
Better protection against exploitation
Make provisions for the
establishment of consumer councils
and other authorities for the
settlement of consumer disputes and

Rights of consumer

Right to safety
Right to consumer education
Right to redressal
Right to be heard
Right to be informed

Krishnan Kumar Bajaj vs. PepsiCo.

Bajaj, a resident of Ahmadabad, had purchased a Lays packet
on 28 June 2010 and sensed its being underweight.
He wrote twice to the manufacturer. While the first letter got
no response, in reply to the second, it offered Bajaj gifts
hamper which he refused.
He approached CERS and the pack was weighed in the inhouse laboratory of the organization. On ascertaining that it
weighed only 8 gm, i.e. 22gm less than that claimed, CERS
immediately wrote to PepsiCo.

Further probe by CERS led to startling revelations : Simi Mehta, a PepsiCo

spokesperson, admitted on phone that the company had been getting
complaints about underweight packets from its Pune plant. This was, therefore,
not an isolated incident. CERS had good reasons to believe that the sale of
underweight packets to consumers was not a freak incident.

Company refused to accept their fault and gave several unsatisfactory

clarifications.

CERS took the issue to the Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, which also
gave a favorable ruling.

The company argued that the complaint should not be entertained, as Bajaj
could not produce the bill for the purchase. For a product of Rs.10/- very often
consumers may not have a bill. To address this issue, Bajaj submitted on
affidavit that he had bought the Lays packet from Brahmani Provision
Stores.

Judgment

The Court overruled the argument of his not having a bill.

CERS in its prayer had requested the court to direct PepsiCo to

immediately stop such unfair trade practice, deposit Rs.2,00,000 in the
Consumer Welfare Fund and award Rs.2,75,250 as punitive damages.
CERS had also appealed to the court to order PepsiCo to give Rs.75,000 as
costs of litigation and also inform the media. If PepsiCo stands to gain Rs.
2,75,250 from underweight delivery in one single product, in one single
batch of one particular manufacturing plant, the implications of this
happening more often are simply huge and that too at the cost of
consumers.

Court gave the order with the comment that if PepsiCo claims to be an
international company, then this kind of negligence is not acceptable.