Centre issues notice to Amazon over sale of sweets as ‘Ayodhya Ram Temple Prasad’

Guwahati, Jan 20: The Central government has served a notice to Amazon, alleging the e-commerce giant of participating in “deceptive trade practices” concerning the sale of sweets named ‘Shri Ram Mandir Ayodhya Prasad’. This move follows a complaint by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), asserting that Amazon is misleading consumers by selling sweets as “Prasad” from the yet-to-be-inaugurated Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) emphasised that engaging in such practices misleads consumers by providing inaccurate representations of product characteristics. This, in turn, can influence consumers’ purchasing decisions based on misleading information.

"Enabling the sale of food products online that make false representations misleads consumers regarding the genuine characteristics of the product. Such practice falsely influences consumers to make purchase decisions they might not have otherwise taken, had the accurate attributes of the product been mentioned," the CCPA said in a statement.

The products under scrutiny on Amazon’s platform include items such as ‘Shri Ram Mandir Ayodhya Prasad-Raghupati Ghee Ladoo’, ‘Ayodhya Ram Mandir Ayodhya Prasad’, ‘Khoya Khobi Ladoo’, and ‘Ram Mandir Ayodhya Prasad-Desi Cow Milk Peda’, among others.

Amazon has a seven-day deadline to respond to the notice issued by the Central Consumer Protection Authority. Failure to do so will result in the initiation of necessary actions against the company under the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.