CONSUMER RIGHT

As whenever we hear this term, we get an idea that it must be specifically dealt in just court of laws or corporations where only white-collar officials get some remedy or where only the people on higher post get some relief as it to be a fancy term. But, that’s not the case here, and to understand it in a better way we can break the term and try to understand it in a better way.

“Consumer” and “Right” can be first understood differently as;

“Right” can simply be defined as a special permission or entitlement to do something.

“Consumer” can although be defined as under Section 2(7) of Consumer Protection Act, 2019 yet to understand it in a better way and so that a layman can understand it as well, we can say that a consumer is any person who gives money or some sort of consideration in exchange of getting some product or services either it be governmental or even private.

The very closest example to every one’s daily life can be given as when a person goes to buy a product at some store and eventually buys it, he automatically becomes a consumer as he bought the services provided by a company in either product form or in some actual services.

The definition as per law is reiterated herein below as,

Section 2(7): "consumer" means any person who ---

(i) buys any goods for a consideration which has been paid or promised or partly paid and partly promised, or under any system of deferred payment and includes any user of such goods other than the person who buys such goods for consideration paid or promised or partly paid or partly promised, or under any system of deferred payment, when such use is made with the approval of such person, but does not include a person who obtains such goods for resale or for any commercial purpose; or

(ii) hires or avails of any service for a consideration which has been paid or promised or partly paid and partly promised, or under any system of deferred payment and includes any beneficiary of such service other than the person who hires or avails of the services for consideration paid or promised, or partly paid and partly promised, or under any system of deferred payment, when such services are availed of with the approval of the first mentioned person, but does not include a person who avails of such service for any commercial purpose.

Explanation. --For the purposes of this clause, --

(a) the expression "commercial purpose" does not include use by a person of goods bought and used by him exclusively for the purpose of earning his livelihood, by means of self-employment;

(b) the expressions "buys any goods" and "hires or avails any services" includes offline or online transactions through electronic means or by teleshopping or direct selling or multi-level marketing;

Every consumer as defined under law has a set of “Rights” per say, just like every citizen of this country has Fundamental Rights, known as “Consumer Rights”.

The main question arises here is, even if we say that a consumer has a set of rights, where would a person/consumer go to get those rights enforced?

The Indian Legislation came out with its solution way back in 1986 with introducing Consumer Protection Act, 1986, which introduced the concept of Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum’s (CDRF) or some other forums such as NCDRC and etc.

It is by far the easiest to approach a CDRF or NCDRC in such consumer related matters where and get the dispute resolved, even sometimes amicably.

The whole idea behind introduction of such initiative was solely based on challenging the monopoly of big stake holders who with the help of their economic wealth dominated market and exploited the consumers.

Now when we look at the present situation, it is very difficult for such stake holders dominate the consumers and exploit them, and it is all because of introduction of Consumer Rights.