OREANDA-NEWS. The Government is aware of media reports regarding growth of online shopping in the country. But presently there is no such proposal under consideration. However, keeping in view the increased number of online fraud/cheating cases, the Government has initiated steps for incorporating sufficient provisions for protection of consumers of online shopping/e-commerce under Consumer Protection Act, 1986. This information was given by the Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri Raosaheb Patil Danve in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.

The Minister said that at present there is no single set of law/regulations to govern E-commerce industry and therefore E-commerce activities including online shopping come under the purview of different laws like Information Technology Act, 2000, Contract Law and Indian Penal Code. E-commerce industry is also required to comply with other business laws like Company law, Labour law, Income Tax laws, Sales Tax law, etc.