The Confederation of All India traders has filed a complaint with the Ministry of Consumer Affairs against Flipkart and Amitabh Bachchan for ad on the upcoming Big Billion Day sale. The traders' organisation also expressed their 'deep disappointment' in Amitabh Bachchan, who, they said, openly endorsed the e-commerce giant's'misleading and frivolous claim that deals and discounts on mobile phones are not available in offline stores and are only available on Flipkart'.
The organisation said that they are not disappointed by Flipkart because they know that Flipkart - and Amazon - entered India to disrupt the traditional retail industry. CAIT also wrote a letter to Amitabh Bachchan, expressing their anguish, informed him about the misleading claims, and informed him that the ad has not gone down well with India's retailers.
CAIT asked the ministry to not only take down the ad, but also to impose penalties of Rs 10 lakh each on Flipkart and Bachchan.
Flipkart has accused the company of indecent trade practices through the ad. The ad 'does not contain truthful and honest representation and is wholly inaccurate, malicious, misleading and manipulative'.
The government asked the ministry to pass directions to Flipkart to stop the advertisement, penalty Flipkart with a term or 2 years and Rs 10 lakh fine and penalty Amitabh Bachchan with a fine of Rs 10 lakh.
The sale of the Big Billion Day event runs from October 8 to October 15 and will end on October 15th.
Also read: Flipkart Big Billion Days sale to start on October 8:Check deals on Google, Oppo, Samsung smartphones.