Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules 2020

Context

• Recently, the Central Government had notified the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules 2020 with effect from 23 July 2020 for the purposes of preventing unfair trade practices in e-commerce. However, since the notification of these rules, the Government has received several representations from aggrieved consumers, traders and associations complaining against widespread cheating and unfair trade practices being observed in the e-commerce ecosystem.

• To protect the interests of consumers, prevent their exploitation and encourage free and fair competition in the market, the Government of India is sharing a draft of the proposed amendments to the Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules 2020.

Proposed Amendments Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules 2020

The proposed amendments aim to bring transparency in the e-commerce platforms and further strengthen the regulatory regime to curb the prevalent unfair trade practices. The proposed amendments are as follows

• To ensure compliance of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 and Rules, appointment of Chief Compliance Officer, a nodal contact person for 24×7 coordination with law enforcement agencies, officers to ensure compliance to their orders and Resident Grievance Officer for redressing of the grievances of the consumers on the e-commerce platform, has been proposed.
  • This would ensure effective compliance with the provisions of the Act and Rules and also strengthen the grievance redressal mechanism on e-commerce entities.

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  Putting in place a framework for registration of every e-commerce entity with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) for allotment of registration number which shall be displayed prominently on website as well as invoice of every order placed the e-commerce entity.

  • Registration of e-commerce entities would help create a database of genuine e-commerce entities and ensure that the consumers are able to verify the genuineness of an e-commerce entity before transacting through their platform.
• To protect the interests of consumers, mis-selling has been prohibited i.e selling goods and services entities selling goods or services by deliberate misrepresentation of information by such entities about such goods or services.
• To ensure that consumers are aware about the expiry date of the products they are buying on the e-commerce platform all sellers on marketplace e-commerce entities and all inventory e-commerce entities to provide best before or use before date to enable consumers to make an informed purchase decision.
• To ensure that the domestic manufacturers and suppliers get a fair and equal treatment on the e-commerce platform it has been provided that where an e-commerce entity offers imported goods or services, it shall incorporate a filter mechanism to identify goods based on country of origin and suggest alternatives to ensure fair opportunity to domestic goods.
• To ensure that consumers are not adversely affected in the event where a seller fails to deliver the goods or services due to negligent conduct by such seller in fulfilling the duties and liabilities in the manner as prescribed by the marketplace e-commerce entity, provisions of Fall-back liability for every marketplace e-commerce entity have been provided.

Source: PIB

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