Consumer Rights — Questions & Answers

Sample questions from Consumer Rights

1. Q1. Until the 1970s, what did consumer organisations in India largely confine themselves to doing?

   • A.Filing cases in consumer courts on behalf of buyers
   • B.Writing articles and holding exhibitions✓
   • C.Running the district level consumer courts
   • D.Issuing the ISI mark to manufacturers
   Solution

   Until the 1970s consumer organisations were largely busy writing articles and holding exhibitions, and it was only later that they took up a wider role. They could not have been filing cases in consumer courts, because those courts did not exist before the Act of 1986, and a student who answers this has not placed the Act on the timeline. Consumer organisations have never run the courts, which are a government machinery, so that option confuses a voluntary body with a state one. The ISI mark is issued by the Bureau of Indian Standards, a role no consumer organisation has held.

2. Q2. A consumer may file a case in a consumer court and present her own complaint there without engaging a lawyer. Which right does this reflect?

   • A.The right to safety
   • B.The right to choose
   • C.The right to consumer education
   • D.The right to represent✓
   Solution

   The right to represent is the right of a consumer to be heard in the consumer courts, and the chapter notes that a consumer may argue her own case without engaging a lawyer, which is part of what makes the machinery accessible. The right to safety concerns hazardous goods and has nothing to do with how a hearing proceeds. The right to choose was exercised at the time of purchase. The right to consumer education is about acquiring knowledge and awareness, and a student who picks it has confused knowing the law with being heard under it.

3. Q3. For what do the letters BIS stand?

   • A.Bureau of Indian Standards✓
   • B.Board of Indian Suppliers
   • C.Bureau of Industrial Safety
   • D.Bharat Institute of Standards
   Solution

   BIS stands for the Bureau of Indian Standards, the body that lays down standards for goods and services and issues the ISI mark and the Hallmark. Board of Indian Suppliers recasts a standards body as a body of sellers, which is the opposite of whose interest it serves. Bureau of Industrial Safety is chosen by a student who remembers that certification is compulsory where safety is at stake and builds the name out of that association. Bharat Institute of Standards keeps the right subject but the wrong words, and no such institute is named in the chapter.

4. Q4. What gave rise to the consumer movement in India in the 1960s?

   • A.Widespread food shortages, hoarding, black marketing and adulteration of food and edible oil✓
   • B.The setting up of consumer courts by the government
   • C.The arrival of foreign goods in Indian markets after 1991
   • D.The passing of the Right to Information Act
   Solution

   The movement began as a social force out of dissatisfaction with unfair trade practices, and the chapter names food shortages, hoarding, black marketing and the adulteration of food and edible oil as the conditions that gave it its urgency. Consumer courts were created by the Act of 1986, which came after two decades of that movement, so answering them reverses cause and effect. Foreign goods after 1991 belong to the chapter on globalisation and fall outside this period altogether. The Right to Information Act is from 2005 and is a later strengthening of one right rather than the origin of the movement.

5. Q5. What is the chapter main criticism of the consumer redressal process in India?

   • A.That it awards compensation too generously and so burdens sellers
   • B.That it is open only to consumers who can engage a lawyer
   • C.That it exists only at the national level and not near the consumer
   • D.That it is cumbersome, expensive and time consuming✓
   Solution

   The chapter records that the enforcement of consumer rights remains weak because the redressal process is cumbersome, expensive and time consuming, so many buyers never pursue a complaint at all. Saying compensation is too generous reverses the complaint, which is that consumers get too little relief and too late. Saying the process is open only to those with lawyers contradicts the chapter, since a consumer may represent herself. Saying it exists only at the national level ignores the district and state levels, which were created precisely so that the machinery would sit close to the buyer.

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