CONSUMER RIGHTS AND ITS EXPANSION

India has been observing 15 March since 1989 as the National Consumers’ Day. This day has a historic importance as it was on this day in 1962, when the Bill for Consumer Rights was moved in the US Congress. During his speech President John F. Kennedy had remarked: 

“If a consumer is offered inferior products, if prices are exorbitant, if drugs are unsafe or worthless, if the consumer is unable to choose on an informed basis, then his dollar is wasted, his health and safety may be threatened, and national interest suffers.” 

John F. Kennedy had equated the rights of the ordinary American consumer with national interest. He gave the American consumer four basic rights: 

1. The Right to Safety - to be protected against the marketing of goods which are hazardous to health or life.
2. The Right to Choose - to be assured, wherever possible, access to a variety of products and services at competitive prices: and in those industries where competition is not workable and Government regulation is substituted, an assurance of satisfactory quality and service at fair prices.
3. The Right to Information - to be protected against fraudulent, deceitful or grossly misleading information, advertising, labeling, or other practices, and to be given the facts s/he needs to make an informed choice.
4. The Right to be Heard - to be assured that consumer interests will receive full and sympathetic consideration in the formulation of Government policy, and fair and expeditious treatment in its administrative tribunals.

Kennedy recognised that consumers are the largest economic group in the country’s economy, affecting and affected by almost every public and private economic decision. But they were also the only important group who were not effectively organised, whose views were not heard. 

Therefore, the Federal Government, by nature the highest spokesman for all people, had a special obligation to the consumer’s needs. Thirteen years later President Gerald Ford felt that the four rights constituted in Kennedy’s Bill of Rights were inadequate for a situation where most consumers are not educated enough to make the right choices. So he added the Right to Consumer Education, as an informed consumer cannot be exploited easily. 

While these rights served the interest of the American consumer well enough, they did not cover the whole gamut, because a global consumer did need, apart from them, other well-defined rights like basic needs, a healthy environment and redress. 

The Consumers International (CI), former International Organisation of Consumer Unions (IOCU), the umbrella body, for 240 organisations in over 100 countries, expanded the charter of consumers rights contained in the US Bill to eight, which in a logical order reads: 

1. Basic Needs 
2. Safety 
3. Information 
4. Choice 
5. Representation 
6. Redress 
7. Consumer Education and 
8. Healthy Environment. 

This charter had a universal significance as they symbolised the aspirations of the poor and disadvantaged. On this basis, the United Nations, in April 1985, adopted its Guidelines for Consumer Protection. 
 

BIRTH OF CONSUMERS’ DAY  

Considering the importance of Kennedy’s speech to the US Congress on this day, and the resultant law, the CI took a decision in 1982 to observe 15 March as the World Consumer Rights Day from 1983. Peculiar though it may sound, 15 March is not observed as a special day in the world’s largest and most pulsating consumer society - the US. But at home in India the Government, adopted 15 March as the National Consumer’s Day. 

India is a country, which never fell behind in introducing progressive legislation - we were among the first in the world to introduce universal adult franchise for women. 

Gandhi had rightly said: 

“A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work - he is the purpose of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to serve him.” 
 

BIRTH OF ‘COPRA’ 

The right to redress lead to the passing of the Consumer Protection Act (COPRA) in 1986 in India which has been defined as the Magna Carta of consumers but, it recognises only six of these eight rights: 

1. Safety; 
2. Information; 
3. Choice; 
4. Representation; 
5. Redress and 
6. Consumer Education.

Besides this statutory recognition, COPRA has succeeded in bringing about revolutionary judicial reforms by providing juristic quasi-judicial courts solely for redressal of consumer grievances (where a price has been paid), for adjudication within a limited time frame of 90 to 150 days. 

The rights of basic needs and healthy environment could not be provided in COPRA as these symbolised the aspiration of the poor and the disadvantaged, and were not the subject matter of priced commodities and services available in the market place. However, these are the backbone of peoples’ movements in both the developing and the developed worlds. 

Yet, inspite of pulsating movements, the rights of consumers could and were trampled on and often. There existed a vacuum in the definition of rights. It was often seen that boycotts would be spontaneous or organised in an adversarial situation, examples of, which are numerous. On an occasion in Calcutta a boycott of fish was successfully organised and the marketing cartel had to bow down, by cutting the inflated prices, rather than store rotting fish.