CCPA Fines Amazon Over Fake ‘Shree Ram Mandir Ayodhya Prasad’ Listing

The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has imposed a ₹1 Lakh penalty on ecommerce major Amazon over the sale of sweets on its marketplace under the misleading claim that they were “Shri Ram Mandir Ayodhya Prasad”. 

In an order earlier this month, the consumer protection regulator said the commercial use of the phrase for ordinary confectionery, without authorisation from the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, amounted to a misleading trade practice and an “affront to the religious sentiments of crores of consumers”. 

The order followed a January 19, 2024 complaint by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which alleged that sweets were being sold on Amazon as Ram Mandir prasad without any authorisation, affiliation, or endorsement from the temple. 

Following a preliminary inquiry, the CCPA found four such products listed by Chandu Trading Company under the Bihar Brothers brand. These included ghee ladoos, khoya khobi ladoos, ghee boondi ladoos, and desi cow milk peda, priced between ₹299 and ₹385. 

The products were available for nationwide delivery and prominently used the phrase “Shri Ram Mandir Ayodhya Prasad”, along with religious imagery and references to Lord Ram and Ayodhya. 

The listings also claimed that the products carried “Blessings from Shree Ram Janam Bhumi Temple, Ayodhya”.

The regulator further flagged that the ingredient section across the four listings described their contents merely as “Ram Mandir Prasad”, calling it a misleading and non-factual description of the products’ actual ingredients.

Amazon Removed Listings After CCPA Notice

The CCPA issued a show cause notice to Amazon on January 19, 2024, following which the company removed the listings and disclosed the identity of the seller.

Amazon said it was only a marketplace and did not make, list, price, or sell the products itself. It also cited safe harbour protection under the IT Act. However, the CCPA rejected this defence, saying Amazon still had to meet its consumer protection duties under the E-Commerce Rules, 2020. 

The authority said an intermediary cannot use its safe harbour status to avoid its own statutory obligations relating to consumer protection, seller disclosures, and grievance redressal.

The CCPA also found that while Amazon had the seller’s contact details internally, these were not prominently displayed on the platform as required under the E-Commerce Rules. It further said that while Amazon’s Buyer-Seller Messaging Service requires users to log in, it does not adequately meet the requirement of providing accessible grievance officer details.

During the proceedings, Amazon clarified that the four products identified in the show cause notice generated total sales of ₹39,802.29.

Of this, Amazon received ₹15,165.90 as service fee for providing marketplace infrastructure. The company also clarified that the previously cited gross merchandise sales (GMS) of ₹25.26 Lakh represented the seller’s total GMS across all its listings and was not Amazon’s revenue or profit.

The products were delivered through Amazon’s Easy Ship service, under which the seller retained inventory and was responsible for packaging. Amazon said it only provided transportation services.

The CCPA said the listings were still live shortly before the January 22, 2024 pran pratishtha ceremony at the Shri Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. It said Amazon’s monitoring systems failed to detect the listings despite its automated checks and seller compliance measures.

Checks For ‘Prasad’ Listings 

After several hearings, Amazon proposed a new system in May 2026 to identify and remove misleading listings claiming to sell prasad linked to major religious institutions. The system covers terms such as ‘prasad’, ‘prasadam’, ‘mahaprasad’ and ‘bhog’. Sellers will need to provide documents proving that such products are genuine and sourced from authorised institutions.

The framework currently covers 10 religious institutions, including the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir, Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam, Vaishno Devi Shrine, and Kashi Vishwanath Temple.

Along with the ₹1 Lakh penalty, the CCPA directed Amazon to ensure that such religious offerings are not sold on its platform without valid proof of authorisation.

Amazon has also been asked to clearly display seller details, including their name, address, customer care number, and grievance officer details. The company must strengthen its system to identify and remove misleading listings and expand it to cover more religious institutions.

Meanwhile, the CCPA also levied a penalty of ₹5 Lakh on Amazon’s rival Flipkart over the sale of toys that did not meet Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) norms.

According to the regulator, these toys could be unsafe and pose a risk of injury to consumers. Its preliminary inquiry found that Flipkart had failed to carry out adequate checks to ensure that only toys compliant with the Toys (Quality Control) Order, 2020, were sold on its platform. The quality control order came into effect on January 1, 2021. 

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