Consumer Rights

Consumer rights refer to a consumer’s right to safety, to be informed, to choose and to seek redressal, concerning their products when they make a purchase.

The Consumer in the Marketplace

People participate both as consumer as well as producer in the marketplace, while acting as a consumer they may be vulnerable to certain exploitative exposures such as:

• Unfair trade practices like adulteration, wrong measurement etc. by the producer 
• Evasion of responsibility by the producer post sales of the product
• Passing off false information about the product through media

Due to this, a need for consumer protection in the marketplace arose, giving rise to the consumer movement. 

Consumer Movement

• It emerged out of the disappointment of the consumers as numerous unreasonable practices were being enjoyed by the venders
• No general set of laws was accessible to consumers to shield them from abuse in the commercial centre
• Henceforth there emerged a development for the assurance of customer freedoms
• Therefore, the obligation of guaranteeing the nature of labour and products moved on to the vendors
• Wild food deficiencies, accumulating, dark showcasing, defilement of food and palatable oil brought forth the shopper development in a coordinated structure during the 1960s, in India 
• In India, the shopper’s development as a ‘social power’ started with the need of securing and advancing the interests of buyers against exploitative and uncalled for exchange rehearses

Due to these efforts, in India, the government enacted Consumer Protection Act 1986, popularly known as COPRA.

Consumer Rights under COPRA

Right to Safety

• While utilizing numerous labour and products, shoppers reserve the option to be secured against the showcasing of merchandise and conveyance of administrations that are unsafe to life and property
• Makers need to rigorously observe the necessary well-being guidelines and guidelines
• For example, pressure cookers should have a safety valve

Right to be Informed

• Consumers have the right to be informed about the particulars of goods and services that they purchase (for example, ingredients used, price, batch number, date of manufacture, expiry date and the address of the manufacturer)
• Consumers can then complain and ask for compensation or replacement if the product proves to be defective in any manner in comparison to the details informed

Right to Choose

• Any purchaser who gets assistance in whatever limit, paying little mind to age, sexual orientation and nature of administration, have the privilege to pick whether or not to keep on getting the help

Right to Seek Redressal

• Purchasers reserve the privilege to look for redressal against unjustifiable exchange practices and double-dealing
• Assuming any harm is done to a purchaser, s/he has the privilege to get paid contingent upon the level of harm
• The purchaser can document a grievance before the proper buyer gathering on his/her own with or without the administration of legal counsellors

Right to Represent

• The Act has enabled the consumers to have the right to represent in the consumer courts
• This has prompted the arrangement of different associations, privately known as customer discussions or shopper security gatherings

• They guide shoppers on the best way to document cases in the buyer court
• At many events, they likewise address individual customers in buyer courts 
• They additionally get monetary help from the public authority for making mindfulness among individuals

Right to Consumer Education

• At the point when we as buyers become aware of our privileges while buying different labour and products, we will actually want to separate and settle on informed decisions 
• This calls for obtaining the information and ability to turn into a very much educated buyer

The sanctioning of COPRA has prompted the setting up of isolated divisions of Consumer Affairs in focal and state legislatures to spread mindfulness. 

Taking the Customer Progress Ahead

Customer development in India has gained some headway as far as quantities of coordinated gatherings and their exercises. In any case, there are sure holes which are: 

• The shopper redressal process is becoming unwieldy, costly and tedious
• The shopper redressal process is becoming unwieldy, costly and tedious 
• Customers are needed to draw in legal advisors which requires time for documenting and going to the court procedures and so forth 
• The current laws additionally are not extremely clear on the issue of pay to customers harmed by inadequate items
• Buyer mindfulness in India is spreading however leisurely
• Enforcement of laws that protect workers, especially in the unorganised sectors is weak

Rules and guidelines for working in business sectors are regularly not followed.