Fairness creams are really taking a beating today. While Maharashtra FDA pulled off some fairness creams from the market for unregulated use of steroids in their products, a district consumer forum in New Delhi has come down rather heavily on Emami Fair and Handsome for not delivering on their product promise – to become fair and handsome.
The credit goes to one man, Nikhil Jain. Nikhil Jain had purchased the Fair and Handsome Cream on October 08, 2012, based on the ‘advice of Shah Rukh Khan (Brand Ambassador of Fair and Handsome Cream)’ in order to become fair in three weeks.
After using the said product for a continuous period of three weeks, complainant did not see any difference on his face, in terms of fairness which caused him ‘huge mental injury’, as the company’s lies had given him some false hope.
In order to protect other men from falling into this ‘fairness trap’, Nikhil Jain filed a complaint with the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum (Central).
Jain along with his brother Paras Jain decided to challenge the ‘Unfair Trade Practice’ of the Company. Paras Jain represented the case before the Consumer Forum for nearly two-and-half years, so that such Unfair Trade Practices in the name of Fairness can be stopped in the society.
District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum (Central) Delhi has imposed the penalty in the form of Punitive Damages of Rs 15,00,000 on the Emami company, for adopting Unfair Trade Practice as its product namely Fair and Handsome Cream promises to provide fairness to men, in three weeks and concomitantly.
The company has been also directed to withdraw the ads suggesting that the use of the product will change the complexion from dark to wheatish or from wheatish to fair.
Good going Nikhil Jain! Maybe companies will now stop aggressively marketing fairness products and from there is but just one more step to the society – accepting that fair or dark, it really doesn’t matter.
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