CCPA slaps Rs 1100000 penalty on this UPSC coaching for misleading ads, not Vikas Divyakirti’s Drishti IAS, Tanu Jain’s Tathastu ICS
The institute deliberately concealed information about which courses the successful candidates were actually enrolled in, creating a false impression that the successful candidates had taken expensive foundation courses worth thousands of rupees.
CCPA fined coaching institute Vision IAS Rs 11 lakh for publishing misleading advertisements about its students’ performance in the UPSC Civil Services Examination. This is the first case of punishment for a repeat offense under consumer protection laws, PTI reported.
The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has found that the institute, officially registered as AjayVision Education Pvt Ltd, deliberately concealed information about which courses the successful candidates were actually enrolled in, creating a false impression that all the successful candidates had taken expensive foundation courses running up to lakhs of rupees.
What is the situation?
The institute’s advertisements, which featured photographs, names and rankings of successful candidates, prominently featured “7 in Top 10 and 79 in Top 100 selections in CSE 2023” and “39 in Top 50 selections in CSE 2022”. However, CCPA’s investigation revealed that out of over 119 successful candidates claimed by Vision IAS for UPSC CSE 2022 and 2023, only three were enrolled in foundation courses. The remaining 116 had opted for services such as test series, one-time Abhyaas tests and mock interview programs only for preliminary and main exams.
The official stated that while the institute announced that Shubham Kumar (AIR 1, UPSC CSE 2020) had enrolled in the GS Foundation Batch (Class Student), it deliberately concealed similar information about other successful candidates shown alongside him. This created the misleading impression that all the featured candidates were enrolled in the same premium course.
So far, the CCPA has issued 57 notices to various coaching institutions for misleading advertising and unfair business practices. A total penalty of Rs 1.09 billion was imposed on 28 institutes with instructions to stop such misleading claims.
