The Court was dealing with a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by one Ajay Kumar Singh through Advocates Rajesh K Pandit and Ankur Gosaid seeking directions to the Centre to ensure that e-commerce websites comply with the Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules, 2020 and the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodity) Rules, 2011.
During the course of the hearing, the Court was told by the counsel appearing for the Centre that an inquiry was conducted and sample analysis has been done by the Quality Council of India (QCI) which revealed that 85 e-commerce websites were not complying with the Legal Metrology Rules, and 23 were in compliance.
It was further stated that till now, notices have been issued to 152 companies for non-declaration of country of origin of products sold on their websites. Of these, 33 have compounded, and 9 have either given a declaration or closed their business.
The counsel added that if the companies do not compound, they will be booked for criminal offences.
Source: Barandbench
