According to a recent industry story, the Indian government intends to implement a uniform framework to address consumer complaints concerning deceptive advertisements.
The National Consumer Helpline, the Press Council of India, and Broadcast Seva have received consumer complaints on the same. Since using different platforms to handle complaints might cause delays and irregularities, the government wants to streamline the procedure, according to the report.
Before issuing any ad, the Supreme Court requires advertisers to provide a self-declaration certificate. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court sharply rebuked consumer goods company Patanjali for its misleading ads eventually leading the top court to mandate a self-declaration certificate by advertisers before releasing their ads.
The ministries of consumer affairs, broadcasting, and information will present the government's proposed unified mechanism to the Supreme Court this week.
It is anticipated to be a component of their reaction to the Supreme Court's criticism of the government last month for failing to record a sufficient number of complaints about corporations' deceptive health claims.
According to another source, handling complaints about deceptive advertisements will be made more effective and smooth by having a single data centre to handle them all.
“So far, three meetings have been conducted with stakeholders and we have summarised all the suggestions and are submitting only those that are feasible,” this person said. “Neither the stakeholders nor the government will need to engage repeatedly with each other to take action against any violator.”
