Law will make celebrities accountable for misleading ads

The Central government is all set to come up with a new law that would make celebrities “accountable for misleading ads”.

The Ministry of Law and Consumer Affairs has accepted the recommendation of a parliamentary standing committee and decided to impose “stringent provisions including jail term and hefty penalty” of up to Rs 5,000,000 for “repeated offence”, official sources said here on Tuesday.

The Cabinet on Wednesday is likely to give its nod to the “change in the draft law” as being brought into the Consumer Protection Bill, 2015, already pending before Parliament.

In its report on the Consumer Protection Bill tabled in Parliament in April this year, the standing committee headed by Telugu Desam Party (TDP) lawmaker J.C. Divakar Reddy had mooted giving “adequate legal teeth to advertising watchdog to curb misleading ads”.

The government has now decided to bring in some “necessary changes” in the Consumer Protection Bill in tune with the spirit of the recommendation of the standing committee.

“The committee strongly feels that misrepresentation of a product, especially of a food product, should be taken very seriously considering the influence of celebrities and individuals and companies. The existing laws are not deterrent enough to discourage manufacturers or publishers from using such personalities for misleading ads,” the parliamentary panel on consumer affairs had said.