New Delhi(PTI): A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking to declare that consumers have a "right to know" about the quality, purity and certification of products, besides details of distributors and sellers for redressal against unfair restrictive trade practices.
It has also sought directions to the Centre and the states to ensure that every distributor, trader and shop owner displays details of registration, including name, address, phone number and number of employees at the entry gate in bold letters on a display board visible to people.
The plea is slated to come up for hearing on July 21 before a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta.
The petition filed by petitioner Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay said "right to know" was crucial for consumers to make informed choices and to protect themselves from unfair or restrictive trade practices and unscrupulous exploitation.
"Right to know helps consumers avoid falling prey to a fraudulent or deceptive distributor, dealer, trader, seller and shop owner, who might misrepresent a product/service or disappear after sale, purchase and money transaction," said the plea, filed through advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey.
It said that if a consumer has an issue with a product or service, knowing details about the distributor, dealer, and seller is essential for filing a complaint and seeking redressal through consumer redressal forums.
"When a distributor, dealer, trader, seller and shop owner are transparent about their details, it fosters a fair and competitive market where consumers can make informed choices," the plea said.
It said in essence, the right to know empowers consumers to be informed or protected and to make choices when engaging in sales, purchases and money transactions.
The plea has sought to direct and declare that "every consumer has 'right to know' not only about quality, quantity, potency, purity, standard, manufacturing date, expiry date and BIS/FSSAI certification of good/products, but also about the details of the distributor/dealer/ trader/seller and shop owner, so as to seek redressal against unfair restrictive trade practices and unscrupulous exploitation in spirit of sections 2(6), 2(9), 2(10) and 2(11) of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019".
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Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).