In last 4.5 years, over 500 cases in Delhi for producing, selling fake products

new delhi: In the last four and a half years, the Delhi Police have registered over 500 cases against various individuals for selling fake products starting from eatables and water to costly watches, medicines and medical equipment being sold in the Capital. Police said they had arrested more than 530 people since 2016 in these cases.

According to the Delhi Police's data on Copyright Act cases, accessed by Millennium Post, 47 cases have been registered this year till August in relation to selling fake products. The total number of such cases last year was 148; over 80 in 2018; around 115 in 2017 and 159 in 2016.

An official from one of the district investigation units (DIU) said that the main reason behind the fake products is the pure commercial benefit. "For the production of a genuine product, it requires a set of rules and regulations, you have to take various kinds of permission and also after the production it is being sold with tax included. But for production of fake products no such things required. The fake products are prepared and designed to make it look like the original and consumers usually cannot distinguish between the two," the official said.

After registering the cases, a detailed investigation was done and in many cases, raids were conducted which led to the arrest of over 530 people (2016-145, 2017-113, 2018-over 45, 2019-175, 2020- 59).

The official added that various companies send their staff or hired persons to keep a tab on the company's products being sold in different markets. "While roaming in various markets, they check whether their products which are being sold are genuine or not. If they find that fake products being sold, they inform company officials, who then file a complaint with us," the official said.

When asked about the size of the factory required for the production of fake products, another official said it does not require any special kind of factory. "We busted one fake cosmetic products racket in an industrial area and found that the unit, from where cosmetic products were recovered, was of the same size which is used for the production of genuine products," the official said.

As per the official, people involved in producing fakes work in a chain system. "Some produce stickers, some people are involved in making tubes or plastic required for packaging the fake product. Most of them don't know where the supply will go," the official said.

Many have also taken advantage of the pandemic and were found manufacturing and selling fake and sub-standard personal protective equipment, masks and sanitisers. In one such case, the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) said certain unscrupulous business firms were manufacturing and selling personal protective equipment, fraudulently using its registered trademark logo of Khadi India, and that it is mulling legal action against them.

In another case, the KVIC on Saturday said its firmness had forced e-commerce portals like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and others to remove over 160 web links selling products branded as 'Khadi'. The development comes in wake of KVIC serving legal notices to over 1,000 firms using the 'Khadi India' brand to sell their products and thus causing damage to its reputation and the loss of work to artisans.

In another case, the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police is now probing a case under the Copyright and Trade Marks Act for the unauthorised and counterfeit sale of cosmetic products manufactured by a Czech Republic-based company. The complaint, filed by the Czech company's authorised distributor in India, alleged that online retail giants such as Flipkart and Amazon were allowing the unauthorised sale of fake versions of their products.