CHENNAI: The State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission recently upheld an order of a district consumer protection council, which declared Unilever’s Hamam Soap scholarship contest an unfair trade practice and slapped a penalty of Rs 2,000 on the firm.
The district council had also asked the company to not indulge in unfair trade practices in future.
M Sudhakar from Pudupatti Post in Namakkal had in 2004 filed a complaint with the Namakkal District Consumer Protection Council, over an advert published by the makers of Hamam Soap that year about a contest offering five persons Rs 4,999 each as scholarship.
People were urged to write in saying what the slogan ‘Hamam Irukka Bhayamen’ meant to them, along with a wrapper of the soap. The best five entries got the cash awards.
The complainant had argued that no entry was valid unless a soap wrapper was sent along with it, which meant it was a ploy to increase the sales of the soap. Accepting the argument, the district court had in February 2007 described the scheme an unfair trade practice under Section 2 (1) (r) (3) (B) of the Consumer Protection Act.
The Act described an unfair trade practice as one which, among others, “permits the offering of gifts, prizes or other items creating impression that it is being given free of charge when it is fully or partly covered by the amount charged in the transaction as a whole.”
The district council noted that the prize scheme was purely an unfair trade practice, and a guise to sell the product.
The district court had also asked the respondent Hindustan Lever Limited (Unilever now) to refrain from such unfair trade practices in the future, apart from asking it to pay a cost of Rs 2,000 to the government.