Shweta Tambade
The Delhi High Court instructed the Centre to validate and inform the court if companies like Amazon, Flipkart, and Snapdeal displayed the country of origin on their products.
Advocate Amit Shukla filed a PIL in the Delhi HC seeking directions to the Centre to ensure that the major-commerce businesses displayed the ‘country of origin’ on the products listed on their websites.
Counsels representing Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, and Decathlon said that they adhered to the rules and were displaying the ‘country of origin’ for all products on their websites.
In the PIL, Shukla said that the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 included that the country of origin must be displayed on the products sold online.
In his affidavit, Shukla alleged that e-commerce firms are overlooking the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodity) Rules, 2011 and Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules, 2020, and the prosecution must be started.
At the same time, representatives for Flipkart, Amazon, and Snapdeal claimed that they followed the rules of displaying the name of the country on the products manufactured.
The Delhi High Court told the central government to validate whether the claims made by the e-commerce company are true and file a new affidavit.
A representative of Decathlon, during the hearing, argued that sometimes the same product is manufactured in one country and assembled in another.
A seven-day ban on Amazon was demanded by the Confederation of All India Traders.
It said that it was unhappy with the INR 25,000 fine levied on the company owned by Jeff Bezos by India’s Ministry of Consumer Affairs for not displaying the ‘country of origin’ for products on its Indian platform.
The ‘country of origin’ rule was also written into the Consumer Protection (Ecommerce) Rules, 2020, notified on July 23.