The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has imposed a penalty of ₹7 lakh each on Vajirao & Reddy Institute and StudyIQ IAS for advertising misleading claims regarding the results of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) Civil Services Exam (CSE) 2022 and 2023, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution stated on Thursday.
The CCPA also imposed a penalty of ₹1 lakh on Edge IAS for advertising misleading claims about the same year's results. The authority has issued an order against these coaching centres to discontinue the misleading advertisements with immediate effect.
These actions are taken to protect and promote the rights of consumers and to ensure that no false or misleading advertisements are made for any goods or services that contravene the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA), headed by Chief Commissioner Nidhi Khare and Commissioner Anupam Mishra, found that Vajirao & Reddy Institute prominently displayed successful candidates' names and pictures while simultaneously advertising various types of paid courses on its official website.
However, the information regarding the course opted for by the said successful candidates in the UPSC Civil Service Exam 2022 was not disclosed in the aforementioned advertisement. The CCPA found that all the claimed 617 successful candidates were enrolled in the Interview Guidance Programme.
It is the right of the consumer to be informed about the specific course that successful candidates had taken from the coaching institute to make it into the final selection of CSE. By deliberately concealing the specific course opted for by each of the successful candidates, the Vajirao & Reddy Institute made it appear as if all the courses offered by it had the same success rate for consumers, which was misleading.
These facts are important for potential students to decide on the courses that may be suitable for them and should not have been concealed in the advertisement. For potential consumers, this information would have contributed to their making an informed choice about the course to be opted for their success at CSE, the ministry's release added.
CCPA also imposed a penalty of ₹1 lakh on Edge IAS for advertising misleading claims regarding results of UPSC CSE 2023. Edge IAS, in its published advertisement, prominently featured pictures and names of 13 successful candidates of the UPSC Civil Services Exam 2023 while concealing important information such as the course opted for by them.
The CCPA found that 11 were enrolled in the Interview Guidance Programme (IGP) and 2 were enrolled in the Mentoring Course and IGP, which comes into play only after clearing the preliminary and mains examinations.
The CCPA has observed that several coaching institutes use the same successful candidates' names and photographs in their advertisements while deliberately concealing important information about specific courses opted for by them, creating a deception that the successful candidates were regular classroom students at the coaching institute or were students of several courses offered in the advertisement.
The CCPA has previously taken action against misleading advertisements by coaching institutes, including Sriram's IAS Coaching and Shubhra Ranjan IAS Study. In this regard, the CCPA has so far issued 45 notices to various coaching institutes for misleading advertisements.
The CCPA has imposed a penalty of ₹71 lakh and ₹60,000 on 22 coaching institutes and directed them to discontinue the misleading advertisements.
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