The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has found a Delhi-based civil services exam coaching institute guilty of misleading advertisements and giving false information, following which a fine of Rs 3 lakh has been imposed on the institute.
CCPA Chief Commissioner Nidhi Khare said that this decision has been taken after investigation of the coaching institute.
The institute has violated the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act 2019, which prohibits misleading, incorrect or false advertisements and concealment of facts from consumers.
Khare said that two claims of Shriram IAS were investigated. The first of these claims was made by the institute in an advertisement that it had secured more than 200 selections in the UPSC Civil Services Examination 2022.
The second claim was the tagline in its advertisements that we are India’s No. 1 Prestigious UPSC/IAS Coaching Institute.
The rules were told in January itself but the coaching institutes did not follow them
This January, the CCPA had published a set of guidelines for professional coaching institutes, making it an offence to make any kind of guaranteed claims, such as selection in ‘prelims’ or claims of rank and score, among other rules pertaining to advertisements.
The competition to secure seats in engineering and medical colleges in the country and the low success rate in civil service examinations often forces candidates to take steps like depression or suicide. Every year many children are forced to take steps like suicide due to this pressure.
For this reason, the government had decided to tighten the rules against populist coaching advertisements. Recently, on 28 July, after heavy rains in Delhi, the anger of the people against UPSC coaching came out clearly after the illegal basement library got flooded.
CCPA ruled against Shri Ram Coaching that the coaching institute promoted various of its courses but deliberately hid the data of how many people passed the exams.
The coaching centre was contacted for response on this matter but no response has been given by the coaching centre on this matter yet.
The coaching institute had claimed 200 students but only 9 students came out of the class
The consumer court said that out of the 200 successful candidates claimed by Shriram IAS in 2022, he was able to provide details of only 171 candidates.
When these candidates were investigated, it was found that most of the successful candidates had no direct connection with Shriram IAS. Many of these people had already cleared the prelims and mains exams.
Out of these 171 candidates, 102 candidates were part of the free interview guidance program provided by the coaching while 55 were part of the free test program.
While 9 candidates were part of their classroom course, 5 candidates came from different states under an agreement between the state governments and the institute.
In its decision, the CCPA said that the coaching institute has deceived consumers by not disclosing these facts in its advertisements.
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