New Delhi: According to a press release, the Delhi High Court ordered online retailer Flipkart to pay a fine of Rs 1 lakh in the court registry within a week for enabling the sale of a substandard pressure cooker on its website.
The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) fined Flipkart Rs. 1,000,000 last month.
Flipkart had been ordered by the authority to contact customers of all 598 pressure cookers sold on its platform, recall the pressure cookers, and give customers their money back.
In an official statement, the CCPA informed that "Delhi High Court has directed Flipkart Internet Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates popular e-commerce platform www.flipkart.com to notify consumers of all 598 pressure cookers sold through its e-commerce platform of the order passed by CCPA that the pressure cookers do not conform to BIS standard."
The Court has further directed the company to deposit the sum of Rs 1 lakh, which is the penalty amount, before the Registrar General of the Court within a period of one week, it added.
The Court had previously passed similar order against Amazon Seller Services Pvt Ltd on September 20 directing the e-commerce platform to notify the consumers of the 2,265 pressure cookers sold on its platform of the order passed by CCPA with respect to non-conformity of BIS standards in the pressure cookers.
The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 stipulates that goods or products which do not comply with the standard required to be maintained by or under any law for the time being in force are liable to be held defective.
As per the Domestic Pressure Cooker (Quality Control) Order, 2020, which came into force on February 1, 2021, all pressure cookers are required to mandatorily conform to standard - IS 2347:2017 and compulsorily use the standard mark for a domestic pressure cooker.
The CCPA has issued safety notices under Section 18(2)(j) of the Act to alert and caution consumers against buying goods which do not hold a valid ISI Mark and violate compulsory BIS standards.
While the first safety notice was issued with regard to helmets, pressure cookers and cooking gas cylinders, the second safety notice was issued with regard to household goods including electric immersion water heaters, sewing machines, microwave ovens, domestic gas stoves with LPG etc.
With PTI inputs