Govt to file review petition against SC order on MRP

The government will file a review petition in the Supreme Court against an order allowing hotels and restaurants to charge higher price than the MRP on mineral water, Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said today. “In relation with the recent Supreme Court judgment on MRP issue, we are filing a review petition before the apex court to reconsider its judgment,” he said.

Earlier this month, the apex court had said the government cannot enforce sale of mineral water on their MRPs in hotels and restaurants as the Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1976 doesn’t apply. Allowing the appeals filed by the Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI), the Supreme Court had set aside the previous order passed by Delhi High Court.

The FHRAI had contended providing mineral water to customers was a transaction consisting mainly of a service and not of a sale of drinking water.

“We are, therefore, of the view that neither the Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1976, read with the enactment of 1985, or the Legal Metrology Act, 2009, would apply so as to interdict the sale of mineral water in hotels and restaurants at prices which are above the MRP,” the Supreme Court had said in its order passed on December 12, 2017.

Paswan has always been vocal against dual MRPs on products and favouring certain mandatory labelling requirements.

He approved amendments to the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011, that will come into effect from January 1, 2018. The amended rules, among others, prohibit dual MRPs on products.

Paswan, on several occasions in the past, also spoke against unfair imposition of service charge on food bill and had even sought explanation from hotels and restaurants' bodies.