These corporations are of the view {that a} transfer to lead them to answerable for fraud dedicated via dealers dangers diluting their mentioned place as intermediaries and argue they simply act as facilitators of transactions between consumers and dealers. “As a platform, we’ve our distinct scope of labor and so does the vendor. It is necessary to offer protection to the patron with obviously mentioned insurance policies and time certain refunds however the felony legal responsibility of a supplier can’t be transferred to the platform and vice-versa. If we commence taking felony duties that come beneath the area of dealers, we will be able to not stay as an middleman. We then turn into like ade-facto supplier, which isn’t who we’re,” stated an govt with an e-commerce company.
There had been a number of circumstances the place shoppers had been delivered broken merchandise or have won a work of brick as a substitute of a smartphone, after putting on-line orders. The ministry of electronics and data generation (MeitY) has requested e-commerce corporations to explain place as intermediaries beneath the knowledge generation act, 2000 and proportion their buyer criticism redressal mechanisms. In reaction, Amazon and Walmart-controlled Flipkart have underlined the truth that FDI regulations for e-commerce permit marketplaces to perform handiest as intermediaries and an try to assign fall-back legal responsibility to them will extend their oversight, and can violate FDI norms. Flipkart declined to supply any feedback. A question despatched to Amazon India didn’t elicit any reaction.