Amity Law School Noida student Paras Jain’s November 2015 win against cosmetic company Emami was turned around by the Delhi state consumer commission, which has sent his case back to the lower rung for fresh hearing.
Jain, acting for his brother Nikhil Jain, had won landmark reliefs against the company for causing alleged psychological hardship to the consumer of its cream through its allegedly false claims of fairness. Emami was ordered to deposit Rs 15 lakh in punitive damages with the state consumer fund, compensate Jain with Rs 10,000 and withdraw the advertisements of its product – the Fair and Handsome skin fairness cream.
State commission president Justice Veena Birbal and member Salma Noor set aside these reliefs on 1 May, and sent the case back to the district commission, ruling that the district commission had failed to consider all the evidence on record and therefore its order of 2015 was liable to be set aside.
The Delhi state commission’s order states:
It is alleged in the written statement that the product in question provides nourishment which makes the skin soft and supple generally making it fairer, smoother, softer, healthier adding a healthy glow. It is also the stand of appellant/OP in the written statement that the degree of effect will obviously vary from person to person depending upon the other variable factors. The product makes the skin fairer is also averred in the written statement. In these circumstances, it cannot be said that the District Forum has considered the entire defence of appellant/OP. Further the District Forum was not right in arriving at a conclusion that advertisement is in contrast to written statement by picking up few lines of written statement and ignoring the remaining relevant portion of it.