Consumer Protection Act 2019 - Resurrecting Consumerism in India

A flourishing economy is dependent on a growing number of consumers. Needless to mention if the number of consumers in a given market is not significant, no company would like to set up a dedicated manufacturing facility for that market or take any similar step to increase its competitiveness, resulting in a direct loss to the economy. Consumers are thus the backbone of a nation’s development. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons behind Indian economy staying cocooned against the impacts of economic downfalls or recessions during the last few decades has largely been attributed to the humongous consumer base in India which never allowed the ‘demand’ to drop lower than the worrying levels. 

However, with an increase in competition, many companies starting adopting anti-consumer practices. Soon it was felt that without a proper legislation in place, the consumers are at the mercy of companies and thus, the landmark Consumer Protection Act 1986 was enacted in India on 24 December 1986. For the first time, an Act dedicated to protecting rights of consumers was in place. The CPA 1986 provided the much-needed safeguard to a common consumer against the malpractices adopted by companies. While the Consumer Protection Act 1986 served its purpose effectively for more than three decades, soon it was felt that the global market scenario has changed drastically over all these years. Modern concepts of business like e-commerce had taken the front seat and the provisions of the Act were proving ineffective in addressing new challenges associated with them.

‘Change’ is the only constant thing in this world. The Government realizing the wide gap between the provisions of the Act and the problems of modern-day economy, started working on drafting a new law that’ll suffice the requirements for next few decades and thus came the idea of Consumer Protection Act 2019. While, Consumer Protection Act 2019 is essentially an upgrade of the old law however, it does contain several provisions that are truly revolutionary. 

The first draft of Consumer Protection Bill 2015 was introduced in the Lok Sabha in the month of August 2015 from where it was sent to the Standing Committee on Consumer Affairs for further deliberation. The Standing Committee conducted several rounds of discussions with various stakeholders and submitted its report in April 2016. The government after completing a comprehensive evaluation of all aspects of the report, reworked on the first draft of 2015 and introduced a revised Consumer Protection Bill 2018 in Lok Sabha in January 2018 which was passed by the Lok Sabha in December 2018. 

In the meanwhile, the 16^th Lok Sabha was dissolved in May 2019 and accordingly the Consumer Protection Bill 2018 passed by the then Lok Sabha was rendered null and void. The NDA Government after coming back to power in May-June 2019, introduced the same bill although now titled ‘Consumer Protection Bill 2019’ in the now 17^th Lok Sabha in July 2019 which was passed in the same month. During the next month i.e. August 2019, the Rajya Sabha also passed the bill and finally with the assent of President, the Consumer Protect Act 2019 was gazette notified on August 09, 2019. 

At the end, it is rather remarkable that an act that went through a period of nearly 4 years in making, took only about 2 months from its statutory inception to enactment. 

It is worth mentioning here that while the Consumer Protection Act 2019 was notified on August 09, 2019; the provisions of Consumer Protection Act 1986 continued to be in effect. This was primarily because of the fact that the government had not notified any rules to prescribe the mechanism in which the provisions of the new act were to be implemented. After a mammoth exercise of nearly a year that involved several rounds of meetings with stakeholders, the government finally notified the first set of rules under the purview of Consumer Protection Act 2019 on July 10, 2020.

Consumer Protection is a recurring issue, no law can be claimed as a remedy forever. While it took more than three decades to come up with a new Act that addresses new challenges, however there is no certainty that the new Act shall suffice all future requirements. Our ever-changing world may give rise to a situation where the government is forced to bring a new law sooner than expected. As of now, Consumer Protection Act 2019 is here, and it could not have come at a better time.