In the case of Baglekar Akash Kumar v. More Megastore Retail Limited (Decided on 19.02.2021), before the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission- II, Hyderabad, the court headed by Hon’ble President Sri Vakkanti Narasimha Rao ordered that-
The Retail Store cannot charge for carry bags which have the printed logo of the company, often used for advertisement. The store is at liberty to charge for plain carry bags, with prior intimation and consent of consumers.
The complainant had purchased a product from the store in the year June 2019. The store charged him Rupees 3/-. The bag contained the Company’s name and logo, used for the purposes of advertisement, thereby using the complainant as their advertisement agent. Using the consumer as an advertisement agent accounts to unfair trade practices under section 2(1)(r) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, furthered in the case of Dinesh Parshad Raturi v. Bata India Ltd (CC/64/2019).
The opposite party on the other hand contended that it is purely the choice of the customer/complainant to purchase a carry bag consisting of the name and logo of the Company. Nobody compelled the consumer to buy such a carry bag, in fact the consumer has a choice to bring their own empty carry bags. There is no rule of law stating that carry bags are to be supplied free of cost by the company to the consumers and to provide bags with no logo or purpose of advertisement whatsoever.
It was further contended that the Company is providing a service to the consumers by providing well-quality bags (thickness of 50 microns), which are made in compliance with the Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2011. Hence, there is no adoption of unfair trade practice by the Company. The decision to charge for the carry bags was based on the principle known as “Polluter Pays”. This basically means, the one polluting the environment, shall bear the costs. The sole motive was to encourage people to be more environment-friendly.
The court held that the Company is in fact selling the plastic bags having Company’s Logo on them, and thereby have been using the complainants as tools of their advertisement, which leads to adoption of unfair trade practice. The consumer has the full-pledged right to know about the bags, its price before he selects goods and products he wants to purchase from the store.
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