Governance· Prelims · GS-II
Consumer protection in India: the 2019 Act, the CCPA and dark patterns
The Consumer Protection Act 2019 and its three-tier commissions, the CCPA’s powers and enforcement record, the 13 dark patterns, e-commerce rules and the e-Jagriti platform.
Every online shopper in India has met them: the countdown timer that resets when the page reloads, the insurance cover that appears in the cart unasked, the “cancel” button hidden in grey six-point type. These are dark patterns, deceptive interface designs that trick users into choices they never meant to make. On November 30, 2023, India’s Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) listed 13 of them and declared them unfair trade practices. This article explains the law behind that move, the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, the CCPA’s enforcement record, and the digital grievance machinery that backs it up.
The Consumer Protection Act, 2019: a new architecture
The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 is India’s principal consumer law. Enacted in August 2019 and brought into force on July 20, 2020, it replaced the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. The old Act was written for the neighbourhood market; the new one is written for the platform economy, covering disputes in physical and digital markets alike and adding mediation, product liability and a central regulator to the toolkit.
The Act’s key definitions decide who can claim what. A consumer is anyone who buys goods or hires services for consideration, including online purchases; goods bought for resale or commercial purpose are excluded. An unfair trade practice is a trade practice that adopts an unfair or deceptive method, and the 2019 definition expressly includes sharing a consumer’s personal information given in confidence. A misleading advertisement is one that falsely describes a product or service, gives a false guarantee, or deliberately conceals important information. E-commerce and direct selling are defined and regulated for the first time, and an endorser, including a celebrity or influencer, is made legally responsible for verifying the claims they endorse.
Feature | Consumer Protection Act, 1986 | Consumer Protection Act, 2019 |
|---|---|---|
Scope | Physical markets only | Physical and digital markets; e-commerce and direct selling covered |
Regulator | None | Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) |
Product liability | No provision | Manufacturer, service provider and seller all liable |
Mediation | No legal provision | Commissions can refer disputes to mediation |
Misleading ads | Weak penalties | CCPA: ₹10 lakh / 2 years first offence; ₹50 lakh / 5 years repeat; endorser bans |
Unfair contracts | Not addressed | Unfair contracts listed and voidable |
Pecuniary jurisdiction | District: up to ₹20 lakh | District: up to ₹50 lakh (2021 rules) |
Product liability: everyone in the chain answers
Product liability is the responsibility of a product manufacturer, product service provider or product seller to compensate for harm caused by a defective product or by deficiency in services. Under Sections 84 to 87 of the Act, a consumer can claim compensation from any link in the chain: the manufacturer for faulty design or manufacture, the service provider for deficient services, and the seller for selling a defective product. A product seller is defined to include anyone who places the product for a commercial purpose, which brings e-commerce platforms within the net; the defence that a marketplace is merely a neutral platform does not wash.
The liability is deliberately tough on manufacturers: a manufacturer is liable in a product liability action even where it proves it was not negligent or fraudulent in making an express warranty. Sellers get limited defences, for instance where the product was misused, altered or modified after sale. For exams, remember the three sections (84 for manufacturers, 85 for service providers, 86 for sellers) and the principle: the 2019 Act moved consumer law from caveat emptor (buyer beware) toward caveat venditor (seller beware).
The three-tier redressal machinery
Consumer disputes are heard by a three-tier quasi-judicial system of consumer commissions: District Commissions, State Commissions and the National Commission (NCDRC). The Consumer Protection (Jurisdiction) Rules, 2021 fixed their pecuniary jurisdiction on the basis of the value of the consideration paid, not the compensation claimed: the District Commission hears complaints where the consideration does not exceed ₹50 lakh, the State Commission where it exceeds ₹50 lakh but not ₹2 crore, and the National Commission where it exceeds ₹2 crore. The 2021 revision deliberately pushed cases upward, because the 2019 Act’s original limits had flooded District Commissions and defeated speedy redressal.
Two digital upgrades changed how consumers reach these forums. e-Daakhil enabled online filing of complaints, completing its rollout to all states and UTs in November 2024. e-Jagriti, launched on January 1, 2025, unified case filing, tracking and virtual hearings across commissions: by mid-November 2025 it had processed over 1.35 lakh filings and disposed of more than 1.31 lakh cases, with over 2.81 lakh registered users including NRIs.
Commission | Pecuniary jurisdiction (consideration paid) | Level |
|---|---|---|
District Commission | Up to ₹50 lakh | District |
State Commission | Above ₹50 lakh up to ₹2 crore | State |
National Commission (NCDRC) | Above ₹2 crore | National |
The CCPA: a regulator with teeth
The Central Consumer Protection Authority is the Act’s enforcement arm, established under Section 10 and functioning under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution from its headquarters in the National Capital Region. It is headed by a Chief Commissioner with commissioners, and its Investigation Wing, led by a Director-General, inquires into violations of consumer rights.
The CCPA’s powers go well beyond advising. It can take suo motu action, order the recall of unsafe goods, direct reimbursement of prices, cancel licences, and file class-action proceedings where a violation affects consumers as a class. Against false or misleading advertisements it can impose penalties of up to ₹10 lakh on a manufacturer or endorser along with imprisonment up to 2 years; for subsequent offences the fine rises to ₹50 lakh with imprisonment up to 5 years. It can also prohibit an endorser from endorsing the product for up to one year, extendable to three years for repeat offences.
Enforcement has been most visible in two sectors. In the coaching sector, the CCPA issued the Guidelines for Prevention of Misleading Advertisements in the Coaching Sector, 2024, requiring truthful success-rate claims, prominent disclaimers and honest disclosures about toppers’ actual enrolment. By April 2025 it had issued 49 notices and imposed ₹77.60 lakh in penalties on 24 coaching centres; in May 2026 it imposed about ₹1.4 crore in fresh penalties on coaching centres in Rajasthan for misleading IIT-JEE and NEET result advertisements, taking total action in the sector past 60 notices. In e-commerce and travel, it has acted against platforms for unfair trade practices and false advertisements, while the National Consumer Helpline secured ₹1.56 crore in refunds for over 600 students denied rightful refunds by coaching institutes.
Dark patterns: the 13 prohibited designs
Dark patterns are practices or deceptive design patterns using user-interface or user-experience interactions on any platform, designed to mislead or trick users into doing something they did not originally intend, by subverting or impairing consumer autonomy, decision-making or choice. The Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023, issued by the CCPA on November 30, 2023 under Section 18 of the Act, declare engaging in dark patterns an unfair trade practice and a violation of consumer rights. They apply to all platforms offering goods or services in India, and to advertisers and sellers.
The guidelines’ Annexure I specifies 13 dark patterns. Each has a crisp regulatory meaning worth memorising:
Dark pattern | What it is | Everyday example |
|---|---|---|
False urgency | Falsely stating or implying time or quantity limits to pressure immediate purchase | A countdown timer that resets on reload; “only 2 left” with no real stock limit |
Basket sneaking | Adding extra items, services or payments to the cart without the consumer’s consent | An insurance cover or donation quietly added at checkout |
Confirm shaming | Using guilt-inducing language to make the consumer feel bad about declining | “No, I don’t like saving money” as the decline option |
Forced action | Forcing the user to take an unrelated action to access the service | “Sign up to continue browsing” with no guest option |
Subscription trap | Making sign-up easy and cancellation hard, or hiding recurring-payment terms | A free trial converting silently into a paid plan; no visible cancel button |
Interface interference | Designing the interface to make the platform’s preferred option prominent and the alternative hard to find | A bright “Accept all” button beside a greyed-out “Reject” link |
Bait and switch | Advertising one outcome and delivering another | Clicking a discounted fare and landing on a higher-priced listing |
Drip pricing | Revealing price elements gradually instead of showing the full payable amount upfront | Convenience fees and taxes appearing only at the final payment step |
Disguised advertisement | Masking ads as user-generated content, reviews or independent advice | Paid promotions styled as genuine customer reviews |
Nagging | Repeatedly requesting or interrupting the user for something already declined | Daily pop-ups asking to enable notifications after refusal |
Trick wording | Using confusing language or double negatives to steer the user toward the platform’s choice | A checkbox phrased so that ticking it opts you in to marketing |
SaaS billing | Exploiting subscription billing in software services through opaque recurring charges | Renewal terms buried in settings; cancellation requiring a phone call |
Rogue malware | Using scareware or ransomware-like tactics to trick users into paying for fake problems | “Your device is infected, pay now to clean it” pop-ups |
The guidelines began as an advisory-style instrument with self-audit expectations rather than a defined penalty mechanism of their own, but enforcement is tightening. In June 2025 the CCPA directed e-commerce platforms to complete a self-audit for dark patterns within three months, and the Department of Consumer Affairs constituted a Joint Working Group with ministries, regulators, consumer organisations and law universities to identify violations and run awareness programmes. Complaints specifically about dark patterns reached the National Consumer Helpline: 36 in the second half of 2023, 43 in 2024 and 7 in the first five months of 2025, each disposed of at the pre-litigation stage.
E-commerce rules: what platforms must do
The Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 set the compliance baseline for online retail. Every e-commerce entity must appoint a nodal officer resident in India, display a grievance officer’s details prominently, acknowledge consumer complaints within 48 hours and resolve them within one month. Sellers must display all information needed for an informed pre-purchase decision, including the country of origin of goods; consumer forums have held that concealing it is a deceptive practice. Marketplaces must ensure the descriptions, images and content supplied by sellers are accurate, and must be transparent about search rankings so that sponsored or preferred sellers are not passed off as organic results.
Two contested frontiers remain. A draft amendment proposed fall-back liability, making a marketplace liable where a seller on its platform fails to deliver through negligence, but the final rules stopped short of it, keeping the marketplace-versus-inventory distinction: an inventory-model entity that owns the goods is treated as the seller and bears full liability. On green claims, the CCPA notified the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Greenwashing or Misleading Environmental Claims, 2024 on October 15, 2024, requiring environmental claims like “eco-friendly” or “carbon-neutral” to be substantiated with verifiable evidence, with penalties up to ₹10 lakh for a first violation and ₹50 lakh for repeat ones.
The grievance backbone: NCH and Jago Grahak Jago
Law without access is decoration, so the consumer regime’s last mile matters. The National Consumer Helpline, reachable on the toll-free number 1915 and through WhatsApp, SMS, email, its app, web portal and the Umang app, works in 17 languages as a single pre-litigation point of access. Calls grew from about 12,500 in December 2015 to over 1,55,000 in December 2024; the helpline now resolves more than 12 lakh complaints a year, many within 21 days, and facilitated ₹27.61 crore in refunds across 30 sectors between April and October 2025. Digital channels account for nearly two-thirds of grievance registrations.
For mains, the consumer protection story is a study in regulatory catch-up: the 2019 Act modernised the statute book, the CCPA gave it an enforcer, the dark-pattern and greenwashing guidelines extended it to interface design and environmental marketing, and e-Jagriti and the NCH digitised access. The open questions are enforcement depth (does a self-audit advisory deter a trillion-rupee platform?), forum capacity (can commissions clear e-Jagriti’s growing docket?), and the oldest one in consumer law: whether the ordinary buyer, facing a dark pattern engineered by a team of behavioural designers, is ever really the equal party the law assumes.
Key Terms
Consumer: A person who buys goods or hires services for consideration, including online; goods bought for resale or commercial purpose are excluded.
Unfair trade practice: A trade practice using an unfair or deceptive method; the 2019 Act expressly includes sharing a consumer’s confidential personal information.
Misleading advertisement: An advertisement that falsely describes a product or service, gives a false guarantee, or deliberately conceals important information.
Product liability: The responsibility of a manufacturer, service provider or seller to compensate for harm caused by a defective product or deficient service (Sections 84-87).
CCPA: The Central Consumer Protection Authority, set up under Section 10 of the 2019 Act to protect consumer rights, investigate violations and penalise unfair practices.
Dark pattern: A deceptive UI/UX design that tricks users into unintended actions by subverting their autonomy; declared an unfair trade practice by the 2023 guidelines.
Drip pricing: A dark pattern that reveals price elements gradually instead of showing the full payable amount upfront.
Basket sneaking: A dark pattern that adds extra items, services or payments to the cart without the consumer’s consent.
NCDRC: The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, the apex tier of the three-level consumer commission system, hearing complaints above ₹2 crore.
e-Jagriti: The unified digital platform launched January 1, 2025 for filing, tracking and virtually hearing consumer cases across all commissions.
Greenwashing: Deceptive or unsubstantiated environmental claims about goods or services; regulated by the CCPA’s October 2024 guidelines.
Practice questions
The Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023 were issued by the CCPA under which provision of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019?
Show answer
Answer: (B) The CCPA issued the dark-patterns guidelines in exercise of its powers under Section 18 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, on November 30, 2023.
Under the Consumer Protection (Jurisdiction) Rules, 2021, a complaint where the value of the consideration paid is ₹75 lakh would be entertained by:
Show answer
Answer: (B) The 2021 rules give the District Commission complaints up to ₹50 lakh and the State Commission those above ₹50 lakh up to ₹2 crore; ₹75 lakh falls in the State Commission’s band.
For a first offence of false or misleading advertisement, the CCPA may impose a penalty of:
Show answer
Answer: (B) First offence: penalty up to ₹10 lakh with imprisonment up to 2 years. Subsequent offences attract up to ₹50 lakh and up to 5 years.
A travel website adds a “travel protection plan” to the booking cart without the consumer selecting it. Under the Dark Patterns Guidelines, 2023, this is an example of:
Show answer
Answer: (B) Adding items to the cart without consent is basket sneaking; revealing fees gradually would be drip pricing.
Consider the following statements about e-Jagriti: 1. It was launched on January 1, 2025. 2. It unified case filing, tracking and virtual hearings across consumer commissions. 3. By November 2025 it had processed over 1.35 lakh filings. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Show answer
Answer: (D) All three statements are correct: e-Jagriti launched January 1, 2025, unified the commissions’ digital workflow, and crossed 1.35 lakh filings by mid-November 2025.
Answer key
(b): The CCPA issued the dark-patterns guidelines in exercise of its powers under Section 18 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, on November 30, 2023.
(b): The 2021 rules give the District Commission complaints up to ₹50 lakh and the State Commission those above ₹50 lakh up to ₹2 crore; ₹75 lakh falls in the State Commission’s band.
(b): First offence: penalty up to ₹10 lakh with imprisonment up to 2 years. Subsequent offences attract up to ₹50 lakh and up to 5 years.
(b): Adding items to the cart without consent is basket sneaking; revealing fees gradually would be drip pricing.
(d): All three statements are correct: e-Jagriti launched January 1, 2025, unified the commissions’ digital workflow, and crossed 1.35 lakh filings by mid-November 2025.
Mains Practice question
GS-2 (150 words): The Dark Patterns Guidelines, 2023 treat interface design itself as an unfair trade practice. Discuss the significance and the enforcement challenges of this shift in consumer protection law.
GS-2 (250 words): “The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 modernised the statute book, but access to justice still decides outcomes.” Evaluate this statement with reference to the CCPA, the three-tier commissions, e-Jagriti and the National Consumer Helpline.
GS-2 (150 words): Examine the CCPA’s enforcement record in the coaching and e-commerce sectors. What does it reveal about the regulator’s priorities and its deterrent effect?
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between the 1986 and 2019 consumer laws?
The 1986 Act covered only physical markets and had no central regulator, no product liability and weak ad penalties. The 2019 Act, in force from July 20, 2020, covers digital markets, created the CCPA, introduced product liability and mediation, and gave the CCPA powers to penalise misleading advertisements and order recalls.
Are dark patterns actually illegal, or just discouraged?
They are prohibited. The CCPA’s November 30, 2023 guidelines, issued under Section 18 of the Act, declare engaging in dark patterns an unfair trade practice and a violation of consumer rights, applicable to platforms, advertisers and sellers offering goods or services in India.
What can the CCPA do to a misleading advertiser?
It can impose a penalty up to ₹10 lakh with imprisonment up to 2 years for a first offence (up to ₹50 lakh and 5 years for repeat offences), order discontinuation of the advertisement, and prohibit the endorser from endorsing the product for up to one year, three years for repeat offences.
Where should a consumer complain first?
Start with the National Consumer Helpline (toll-free 1915, 17 languages) for pre-litigation resolution; it resolves most complaints within weeks. For formal adjudication, file on e-Jagriti or e-Daakhil before the District, State or National Commission depending on the consideration paid: up to ₹50 lakh, up to ₹2 crore, or above ₹2 crore respectively.