PIL in Delhi HC seeks to ensure displaying manufacturing country's name on products on e-commerce sites
Jun 30, 2020
New Delhi [India], June 30 : A PIL has been moved in Delhi High Court seeking directions to Centre to ensure the display of the name of the manufacturing country on the products offered for sale at e-commerce websites.
The PIL also seeks the compliance of Legal Metrology Act, 2009.
The plea filed by Advocate Amit Shukla, practising lawyer, stated that in the year 2017 Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011 was amended and a mandate was inserted to publish the country of origin/manufacture in the e-commerce website, however, the same was never enforced for the e-commerce companies.
It also added that today, when a large number of Indian citizens intend to comply with the government's appeal to promote and buy Indian goods in order to strengthen the nation, it becomes essential that the e-commerce websites conspicuously display the country of manufacturing/origin for all products sold through such platforms.
The Division Bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan is scheduled to hear the petition on Wednesday. The petitioner has made all e-commerce companies including Amazon, Snapdeal and Flipkart etc as a party in the petition.
It added that economy of the entire nation would suffer in the event the e-commerce websites continue to not mention the manufacturing country/country of origin of products on the sites.
Earlier this month, the Government e-Marketplace (GeM), a Special Purpose Vehicle under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, had made it mandatory for sellers to enter the country of origin while registering all new products on GeM, with an aim to promote 'Make in India' and 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat'.
Moreover, sellers who had already uploaded their products before are being reminded to update the country of origin, failing which their products will be removed from the GeM.
The GeM has also enabled a provision for indicating the percentage of local contents in the listed products and has also enabled the 'Make in India' feature on its portal.
