False and misleading
advertisement
False and misleading advertisements are most vociforus. Such advertising
is necessarily vulnerable. Where the major purpose of a company advertising
falsely and misleading the customer is to attract members of the public towards
buying a particular product, wherein it is fairly straight forwards that the methods
employed in this process have become increasinghly complex.
From
the economic point of view, enormous amounts are spent on the false and
misleading advertisement. A false advertisement represent the quality of a
goods which it dose not possess, whereas a misleading advertisement hides some
contents and adds other contents which mislead the consumer.
A dry
cleaner exhibited his trade name on the sign board as ‘Modern Dry Cleaners’,
but he made numerous holes in two saries of the complainant, entrusted for dry
cleaning valued at Rs 4000. His service was found deficient.
As per section 2(1)(r) of the consumer protection act 1986,
the fact of falsely representing that the services were of a particular
standard, quality or grade, amounted to unfair trade practice. In this case the
opposite party though his name board was making the public believe that he was
doing dry cleaning work, would admittedly he was not. He was clearly indulging
in unfair trade practice. Any false representation would prove costly for
him.[Modern Dry Cleaners v. A. Kanniappan]
Jurisdiction of consumer forum relating to complaints on
false and misleading advertisement consequences.
On
a true interpretation of section 2(1)(r) of the consumer protection act, the
owner of an undertaking to which part A of chapter III of that Act, applies or
any person acting on behalf or for the benefit of such owner is not included.
In other words, the jurisdiction regarding unfair trade practice adopted by the
owner of the company has been distributed between the Consumer Forum and M.R.T.P.
commission . the Consumer Forum is not entitled to take up the case for
decision regarding unfair trade practice adopted by owner of undertaking to
which Part A of Chapter III of the Act, applies.is not entitled to take up the
case for decision regarding unfair.
The provision of
the Consumer Protection Act, are in addition to and not in derogation of the provision
of any other law for the time being in force.
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