Consumer Protection refers to the act of providing adequate protection to consumers against the unscrupulous, exploiting and unfair trade practices of manufacturers and service providers.
Importance of consumer protection for consumers:
(i) Consumer awareness: Consumers at large are ignorant of their rights and responsibilities and various redressal mechanisms. Therefore, it is important to educate them and make them aware of the same to ensure overall consumer welfare.
(ii) Unorganised consumers: In India, consumers have not yet organised themselves to have powerful consumer movement. Owing to this there is strong need to provide adequate protection.
(iii) Widespread exploitation of consumers: The consumers are widely exploited through various unfair trade practices, such as defective and unsafe products, adulteration, misleading advertising. So consumer protection is absolutely necessary to provide protection against such malpractices of the sellers.