CCPA fines Amazon Rs 1 lakh over Ram Mandir prasad listings

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

The authority rejected Amazon’s argument that its status as an online marketplace intermediary protected it from liability for third-party listings, holding that consumer protection obligations under the Consumer Protection Act and E-Commerce Rules operate separately from intermediary protections under the Information Technology Act.

The case followed a complaint filed by the Confederation of All India Traders in January 2024 over four varieties of sweets listed by Chandu Trading Company under the Bihar Brothers brand. The products included ghee ladoos, khoya ladoos, boondi ladoos and cow milk pedas, and were marketed using religious imagery and claims that they carried blessings from the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi temple.

The listings appeared shortly before the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony on January 22, 2024. Amazon removed the products after receiving a CCPA show-cause notice on January 19.

The CCPA said consumers would ordinarily understand “Shri Ram Mandir Ayodhya Prasad” to mean food offered to and blessed by the deity at the Ayodhya temple. It held that using the term for ordinary confectionery without authorisation amounted to a misleading trade practice and could offend the religious sentiments of consumers.

Amazon had maintained that it did not control the listing, pricing, description or sale of the products and that third-party sellers were responsible for ensuring the accuracy and legality of their listings. The CCPA rejected this defence, saying marketplace entities have affirmative and continuous obligations under e-commerce rules that cannot simply be transferred to sellers.

The authority also found that Amazon had not adequately displayed complete seller and grievance officer details. It said making such information available through hyperlinks or a messaging system requiring users to log in did not meet the required disclosure obligations.

According to information submitted by Amazon, the four disputed listings generated sales of Rs 39,802, of which Amazon received Rs 15,165 as service fees. The company clarified that an earlier figure of Rs 25.26 lakh represented the seller’s gross merchandise sales across all its listings.

Alongside the penalty, the CCPA directed Amazon to ensure that products marketed as “prasad”, “prasadam”, “mahaprasad”, “bhog” or similar religious offerings are not listed without verifiable 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.

The CCPA has also ordered Amazon to strengthen its keyword-based monitoring and takedown mechanisms and prominently display seller and grievance officer details. The authority treated Amazon’s subsequent cooperation as a mitigating factor but warned that similar violations could invite stricter action.