The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) on Tuesday said that it is in the process of finalising guidelines for coaching institutes, in a bid to curb misleading advertisements. A committee, which has been set up to prepare these guidelines by the CCPA on Tuesday held its first meeting to discuss the draft guidelines which state that coaching institutes cannot make false claims regarding success rates of selections or the number of selections that may lead to misunderstanding among consumers.

Consumer Affairs Ministry officials said that the committee observed that there is an urgent need to finalise the guidelines and will be issued at the earliest.

Draft guidelines

The draft guidelines state that , “coaching institutes shall not make 100 per cent selection or 100 per cent job guaranteed or guaranteed preliminary or mains,” with regards to the UPSC exam process. They also outline the requisite information that will need to be displayed along with photos of successful candidates in promotional ads. Coaching institutes will need to give information regarding the rank secured and the course opted by the successful candidates. Information about the duration of course and whether it was paid or free will also need to be displayed.

The committee tasked with preparation of these guidelines. is chaired by Rohit Kumar Singh, Secretary, Department of Consumer Affairs and Chief Commissioner of CCPA . The other members of the committee include Commissioner (CCPA), representatives from Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT), Ministry of Education, National Law University (NLU), Delhi, FIITJEE, Khan Global Studies and Ikigai Law among others..

Consumer interest paramount

Singh stated that the protection of consumer interests is paramount to drafting guidelines concerning CCPA and highlighted the need for clarity, specifically in addressing certain aspects, related to advertisements in the coaching sector. He further stated that CCPA firmly believes in safeguarding the rights of consumers and ensuring no false or misleading advertisement is made of any goods or services that contravenes the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.

Once finalised, the guidelines will be applicable to all the coaching institutes, whether online or physical and cover all forms of advertisement regardless of form, format or medium.

“The Guidelines prescribe conditions when an advertisement by a coaching institute shall be construed to be misleading advertisement as defined under the Consumer Protection Act 2019 which include concealing important information related to the course opted by the successful candidates [courses opted by successful candidates (whether free or paid), duration of course etc,” an official statement added.

Penalty for misleading advertisements

The penalty for misleading advertisements by the coaching sector will be governed as per Consumer Protection Act, 2019 and the guidelines will be issued to provide clarification to the stakeholders, the statement added.

CCPA had earlier taken suo moto action against misleading advertisements by coaching institutes. In this regard, CCPA has issued notices to 31 coaching institutes for misleading advertisement and imposed fine on 9 of them for misleading advertisement.

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