Posted on

GUEST LECTURE BY PROF. ANAND DESHMUKH ON CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT

Prof. (Dr.) Anand Deshmukh, Director Onezeroeight delivered a lecture on Consumer Protection Act and its implications for consumers for the ALC BALLB  2nd Semester students on 24th January, 2019.

The speaker who is having a 14 years’ experience in the field of branding and corporate restructuring addressed the students with the problems that consumers faces today because of ignorance about the usage of products.  The lecture highlighted how consumers are treated as fools even today despite UN’s 1989 guidelines on the same.  The speaker further enlightened the students about U.S President, John H. Kennedy whose first vision on consumer rights in a message to Congress on 15th March, 1962 helped the people to celebrate the day as World Consumer Day. He further highlighted the concept of Exercise Duty and its impact on Indian economy.  The speaker moved forward in his session by inserting few excerpts on the consumer rights on products and how advertisement may sometimes mislead people. The speaker further highlighted the important concepts of Consumer protection moving on to the objectives of the Act, Section 2(1)(o), Section 27 of the act. He further enumerated some of the landmark judgments in this area of law and also defined the meaning of ‘Contract of Service’ through a PowerPoint presentation. He also talked about the importance of ‘Unfair Trade Practise’ in MRDP Act and Competition Act issue of Kashmir as a result of British colonial policy. The lecture also elaborated upon the meaning of Service and its essential ingredients.  Towards the end of the lecture, he advised students to be cautious not only as an individual but most importantly as a consumer and shared the PowerPoint Templates for further reference.

The speaker concluded the session with a thought provoking explanation on how advertisement can mislead people, keeping in mind the latest Consumer Protection Bill 2018. In order to support his discourse, he gave example of Facebook and Zomato as platforms deliberately misleading people by collecting their personal data and later misusing the same for their own good. The session in its conclusion also had some question from one of the concerned faculty of Asian Law College on the vital issue of consumer protection bill 2018 which was appropriately addressed by the speaker.