Emami ordered to pay ₹15 lakh in damages in 2013 case over fairness cream

NEW DELHI: A Delhi district consumer dispute redressal commission on Monday ordered personal care company, Emami Ltd to pay ₹15 lakh in punitive damages on a 2013 complaint of a Delhi resident for misleading advertising and unfair trade practices. Nikhil Jain filed a complaint in 2013 with the district consumer forum complaining that he had used the company’s “Fair and Handsome Cream” The company has been ordered to deposit punitive damages of ₹14.5 lakh into the State Consumer Welfare Funds Delhi bank account and pay ₹50,000 to Nikhil Jain, a resident of Rohini in northwest Delhi, who bought the cream in October 2012 and filed the complaint against the Kolkata-headquartered beauty and wellness company. Jain filed a complaint in 2013 with the district consumer forum complaining that he had used the company’s “Fair and Handsome Cream” which was advertised to provide fair skin to users in three weeks. “The conclusions drawn above, makes it crystal clear that the OP is offering the product - Fair and Handsome cream with few, negligible and limited instructions on the packaging and labeling that its use regular use for three weeks will result into fairness in the skin of man, despite knowing that instructions mentioned are incomplete instructions and for want of following the other requirements, it will not give the result claimed,” the bench comprising president Inder Jeet Singh and member Rashmi Bansal of the central district’s consumer dispute redressal commission said in its December 9 order.