 "Hindustan Lever to pay Rs 5.5 lakh for unfair trade practice")
New Delhi: Hindustan Lever has been pulled upfor unfair trade practice by a consumer forum here which directed it to pay Rs 5.5 lakh to a purchaser of one of itsdetergents for not giving him Rs 5 lakh prize money accordingto a scheme launched by it.
The New Delhi District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forumheld that the scheme was “flawed” for trying to promote salesby lottery and observed that it was time “such offers areregulated and examined before launch by Ministry of ConsumerAffairs and a regulatory machinery is created to preventcheating of the public at large”.
[caption id=“attachment_1259837” align=“alignright” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption]
The bench presided by C K Chaturvedi asked the ministryto deal with the issue saying “the consumer dispute redressalmachinery is not equal to the task. It (consumer forum) cannotprevent. It can only award compensation or direct closure ofscheme after the event.”
According to the company’s advertised scheme, anyone whofound a cloth marked ‘10/10’ in a pack of Surf Excel wasentitled to win Rs 5 lakh as a prize.
However, the complainant, Delhi resident Nathu SinghRajput contended that when he had found a cloth marked ‘10/10’and informed the company about it, he did not get the prizeamount.
Hindustan Lever claimed that only those cloth pieceswhich had ‘10/10’ marking as well as a unique code were thewinning pieces entitling a person to the prize amount.It had said only four such pieces were sent out in its
Impact Shorts
More Shortsdetergent packs and as a result, various claims of peoplehaving ‘10/10’ marked cloth but without the unique code havebeen filed in consumer forums across the country.
The forum noted that Hindustan Lever had not denied thatthe complainant had purchased their product, but was disputinggenuineness of the swath.
It dismissed Hindustan Lever’s contention saying, “We areof the view that opposite party (the company) has only createda well-designed facade or make-believe world of code,laboratories testing etc…”
The forum questioned as to why cloth pieces with ‘10/10’marks were put in several packets of Surf Excel if only fourpackets out of lakhs were to qualify for the prize.
“The opposite party indulged in unfair trade practice bylaunching a flawed scheme with a view to promote sales bylottery, not fair to all,” it said, reiterating its ordergiven in a similar matter earlier.
PTI
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