Ram Vilas Paswan, Minister of Consumer Affairs, food and public distribution has said that the government is all set to file a review petition in Supreme Court against its order which allowed the hotels and restaurants to charge more than the Maximum Retail Price (MRP) on the water bottle.
In its recent order SC laid down that the hotels and restaurants are providing service and thus allowed them to sell pre-packaged water bottles over and above the MRP as they are not governed by the provisions of the Legal Metrology Act.
The definition of institutional consumer has been added in the Legal Metrology Rules by the department of consumer affairs through the latest amendments. The definition has been added to prevent the hotels and restaurants from re-selling the pre packaged water bottles sourced by the institutional consumer for their own use.
Mr. Paswan said that the definition of the institutional consumer provided under the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011 has not been properly considered by the court while passing the order and thus the department of consumer affairs will file a review petition against the court’s order.
The Director of Legal Metrology, B.N. Dixit added that the institutional consumers are allowed to purchase the commodities from the manufactures but they are not allowed to sell. If they sell these commodities they are governed by the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011 and also by the recent amended rules of 2017.
The court in its order held that no person goes to a hotel or restaurant to simply purchase a bottle of water, they order beyond that. It was stated by the court that a person goes to hotel or restaurant to enjoy the ambience and incidentally order items for his consumption.
The amended legal metrology rules will be enforced from January 1, 2018, mandate that no identical pre-packaged products should be sold at a price higher than its MRP.
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