CCPA imposes ₹1 lakh penalty on Amazon for allowing sale of ordinary sweets as Ram Mandir Prasad

The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has imposed a penalty of ₹1 lakh on Amazon Seller Services Private Limited for allowing ordinary sweets to be sold on its platform as “Shri Ram Mandir Ayodhya Prasad” without authorisation from the Ram Mandir Trust.

The CCPA observed that 'Shri Ram Mandir Ayodhya Prasad' would ordinarily be understood by devotees as food offered to and blessed by the deity at the Ayodhya Ram temple.

“The commercial appropriation of this phrase for ordinary confectionery products, without any authorization from the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, constitutes not just a misleading trade practice under the CP Act but an affront to the religious sentiments of crores of consumers,” the order stated.

The CCPA held that Amazon was party to the publication of misleading advertisements since it hosted, displayed and facilitated the sale of the products, and it could not claim safe harbour protection available to intermediaries under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act (IT Act).

The order was passed by Chief Commissioner Nidhi Khare and Commissioner Anupam Mishra on August 4 on a complaint made by the Confederation of All India Traders in January 2024.

The penalty must be deposited within 15 days.

The complaint concerned four varieties of sweets listed by Chandu Trading Company under the brand Bihar Brothers. These included ghee ladoos, khoya ladoos, boondi ladoos and cow milk pedas.

The listings used religious imagery and claimed that the products carried “Blessings from Shree Ram Janam Bhumi Temple, Ayodhya”. The ingredient column described the contents as “Ram Mandir Prasad”.

The CCPA noted that the products were listed shortly before the consecration ceremony at the Ram Mandir on January 22, 2024. Amazon removed them after receiving a show-cause notice on January 19.

Amazon maintained that it was merely a marketplace intermediary and had no role in listing, pricing, describing or selling the products. It invoked the safe harbour protection under Section 79 of IT Act and said third-party sellers were contractually responsible for ensuring the accuracy and legality of listings.

The CCPA rejected this defence, holding that the Information Technology Act and Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 operated on distinct legal planes.

“A marketplace entity cannot selectively invoke its intermediary status under the IT Act to escape consumer protection obligations while simultaneously deriving commercial benefits from the transactions on its platform,” the authority said.

It added that the E-Commerce Rules impose affirmative, proactive and continuous obligations on marketplace entities. Statutory duties could not be contracted away or delegated to sellers.

The authority also found that Amazon failed to prominently display complete details of the seller and its grievance officer. Access to such information through hyperlinks or a messaging service requiring users to log in did not amount to adequate compliance, it said.

Amazon informed the authority that sales from the four disputed listings generated ₹39,802, from which it received ₹15,165 as a service fee. It clarified that the ₹25.26 lakh figure disclosed earlier represented the seller’s gross merchandise sales across all its listings.

The CCPA directed Amazon to ensure that products claiming to be “prasad”, “prasadam”, “mahaprasad”, “bhog” or similar religious offerings are not listed without verifiable proof of authorisation.

The direction covers 10 religious institutions, including the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir, Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam, Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine, Kashi Vishwanath Temple and Jagannath Temple.

Amazon was also ordered to prominently display seller and grievance officer details and strengthen its keyword-based monitoring and takedown mechanism.

The authority treated Amazon’s subsequent cooperation as a mitigating factor but warned that similar violations could attract stricter action.

Amazon was represented by Advocates Saikrishna Rajagopal, Vivek Ayyagari, Mythili Girish, and Manas Raghuvanshi from Saikrishna & Associates.

[Read Order]