The Union consumer affairs minister says he would like an independent regulator to check false or misleading advertisements.
“Given the wide canvas on which advertisements appear, I imagine it would require an elaborate machinery to monitor,” Consumer Affairs Minister K V Thomas said on Thursday, while addressing a seminar on self-regulation of advertising content.
He said the Advertisement Standards Council of India (ASCI), is in favour of self-regulation and felt government efforts to work towards a separate regulator was not required.
Yet, there had been numerous instances where despite an ASCI directive, misleading advertisements have continued to harm the public.
He said an independent regulator would ensure advertisements lacking proof of the claims being made could not appear.
The minister cited instances of a faulty job scheme and wrong presentation of accreditation by a dental college as instances of how self-regulation had failed to work in the advertisement industry. He said the country had laws on misleading advertisements like the Consumer Protection Act, the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act and the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act. However, most of these did not have the desired effect in stopping misleading advertisements because they were either not adequate or implementation was poor.
“(Tribunals under) the Consumer Protection Act have indeed delivered some excellent judgments vis-à-vis misleading advertisements, but they do not have suo motu powers,” Thomas said.
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He said he was particularly concerned about the impact of misleading advertisements on vulnerable groups like children, senior citizens and those suffering from health problems. “I feel particularly about health and nutrition-related advertisements that blatantly mislead consumers,” Thomas said.
He said the most-striking feature of misleading advertisements is that most of these were issued not by some small fly-by-night companies, but big corporations, who could even be members of ASCI.
“I am specifically referring to cases such as that of Piramal Healthcare on ‘Getting complete energy in eight days or money back’ or the Airtel digital television advertisement on ‘Free regional pack for life’ or the one on Nuzen Gold hair oil,” Thomas said.