INTRODUCTION:
The Legal Metrology Act, 2009 is an act of parliament, enforced into existence on 1st April, 2011. The act was enacted to establish and enforce standards of weights and measures, regulate trade and commerce for goods which are sold or distributed.
According to the Section 2(g) of the Act, Legal metrology treats the weight and measures, methods of measurement and measuring instruments in relation to the required legal and technical requirements with the objective of public transparency.
The Legal metrology act is enacted under Ministry of Consumer Affairs and implemented by the State Government. The Controller of Legal Metrology under Commissioner of Labour is the authority who overlooks the functioning of the Act. The Legal metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011 regulates the pre- packaged commodities in India and mandates the labelling requirements prior to the sale of such commodities.
KEY SECTIONS OF THE ACT:
(a)Section 9 of the act specifies that the standards should be verified and stamped through the Government approved test centre. Every unit of weights or measures should be in line with the measurement system based on international system of units.
(b)Section 18 specifies the condition for manufacturing, packing, selling, distributing, delivering and exposing for the sale of any pre packaged commodities. According to the act, (i) the package of pre-packaged commodity should contain standard quantities or numbers and also contain the particulars of the commodity like Name and address of Manufacturer, Common and generic name of goods, Country, month and year of packing, best before details, Retail sale price (No dual price) and additional declarations like provision for consumer complaints, logos and barcode. (ii) any advertisement mentioning the retail sale price of the pre-packaged commodity should contain the net quantity or number of commodity contained in the package.
(c) Section 24 of the act specifies that the verification, calibration and stamping process for the standards should be done once in a year. The measuring instruments used like weight scale, length measuring scale, beam and counter scale should be verified and stamped once in two years. In addition, the verification certificate should be exhibited near the scale.
The verification of the measure is done using the following equation:
(d) The act also specifies that the height of the numerals or letters should be in range of 1mm for principal display area of 5cm2 to upto 6mm for display area of 2500cm2. Also, the width of the letters should not be less than one-third of height.
EXCLUSION FROM THE ACT:
Under Section 3 of the rules, the above said rules are not applicable for (i) Packaged commodities of more than 25Kg or 25litre excluding cement and fertilizers in bags upto 50Kgs. (ii) Packaged commodities meant for institutional and industrial customers. (iii) Net weight or measure of commodity is 10gm or 10mm or less. (iv) Package containing food items packed by restaurants. (v) Agricultural farm produces in packages of above 50Kgs.
CONCLUSION:
The Legal metrology act,2009 thus mandates various requirements in order to bring transparency in view of security and accuracy of weights and measures.
REFERENCES:
https://chdconsumercourt.gov.in
https://www.legalmetrology.in
https:/www.indiankanoon.org
https://www.advocatekhog.org
https://www.mondaq.com
https://www.consumaeraffairs.nic.in
https://blog.ipleaders.in
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