DNA, brings to its readers expert’s take, where experts from a variety of fields take questions and give ready answers to issues close to citizen’s heart. Our experts will take your questions and offer their expertise. Today we bring to you our expert’s take on consumer issues. Is it true that false or misleading advertising is a punishable offence under the newly legislated Consumer Protection Act? What is the punishment and who will be punished – advertiser, manufacturer, or the celebrity endorsing the product?—Anagha Acharekar, Dadar The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 (CPA) provides for heavy fines and punishment for making false or misleading advertisements. Sec 21 of the CPA empowers the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) to issue directions to either modify or withdraw the false or misleading ads. CCPA is also empowered to impose penalties on manufacturer, advertiser, endorser and publisher up to Rs 10 lakh in such cases. CCPA is further empowered to prohibit the guilty endorser from making an endorsement of any product or service for up to 1 year. For a subsequent offence, the penalty can increase up to Rs 50 lakh and prohibition to endorse any product or service can extend up to 3 years. What is more important, Section 89 of the CPA empowers the court to punish the manufacturer or service provider, who causes a false or misleading advert prejudicial to the interest of consumers, with imprisonment up to two years and a fine up to Rs 10 lakh. Celebrities endorsing a product are spared imprisonment. What is the Conciliation Forum under MahaRERA? Has it any legal sanction? How does it function? —Rajesh Sawant, DN Nagar, Andheri The Conciliation Forum is a platform, as proposed by Mumbai Grahak Panchayat (MGP), for settlement of homebuyers’ disputes with builders. The Conciliation Forum is created under Sec 32 (g) of the RERA Act and hence it has legal sanction. It is created with a view to providing a speedy, alternate remedy to aggrieved homebuyers. The Conciliation Forum comprises a bench of two Conciliators, one from Mumbai Grahak Panchayat and the other from Developers’ bodies like CREDAI, MCHI, or NAREDCO. These Conciliators are trained and experienced persons. The proceedings before the Conciliation Forum are informal and simple. If a homebuyer has any grievance against his builder, he can file his application online with MahaRERA for Conciliation giving details of his grievance along with the MahaRERA registration number of the project. The grievance is then communicated to the builder concerned. If he consents to Conciliation, then the complainant is advised to pay a fee of Rs 1000 (plus GST) and thereafter the matter is referred to one of the Conciliation Benches. The complainant and the Opposite party appear in person or through their authorised representative. Advocates are not entertained here. The Conciliators facilitate the amicable settlement between the parties. If both parties agree on certain terms, the same is put on paper by way of consent terms and signed by both parties as well as by the Conciliators. Normally, the grievance gets settled in two to three hearings. The advantage of Conciliation settlement is that there is no appeal against such settlement since it happens with consent by both parties. However, in case any party breaches such settlement, the other party can approach MahaRERA, which will direct the party concerned to comply with the consent terms or face consequences for on-compliance under RERA Act. (The author is Chairman of Mumbai Grahak Panchayat)

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