Fake review law in India, and what it means for your business
By ReputationKiln Editorial · Published
India regulates fake reviews through its Consumer Protection Act of 2019 and an unusually active enforcement body. The Act defines misleading advertisements and unfair trade practices broadly enough to capture false testimonials and review manipulation, and the Central Consumer Protection Authority can order misleading content stopped and impose penalties of up to ten lakh rupees for a first offence and fifty lakh for repeats. Alongside it sit e-commerce rules that bar falsely posing as a consumer or paying others to post reviews, a 2022 set of guidelines on misleading advertisements and endorsements, and a national standard for online consumer reviews covering how they are collected, moderated and published.
What this gives an operator is a genuinely enforced framework. What it does not do, any more than elsewhere, is pre-check a seller before you buy.
Who enforces it, and the record
The CCPA has been busy. In 2024 the Supreme Court held that celebrities and influencers are equally liable with advertisers for false endorsements and required pre-publication self-declarations. The CCPA itself penalised an edtech firm for unsubstantiated success claims, and fined a ride-hailing app the maximum first-offence penalty in 2025 for a deceptive promotional offer, ordering consumer refunds. The advertising self-regulator, which now refers unresolved cases to the CCPA, reported that the overwhelming majority of the advertising violations it investigated originated on digital platforms, which signals where enforcement is heading.
What it means for you, and the limit
For an honest business, the active CCPA and the influencer ruling make undisclosed paid endorsements and fabricated reviews a real risk, which protects you against rivals who use them and exposes you if you do. The limit is that formal fake-review-specific enforcement is still developing, and criminal defamation also exists in India, a powerful deterrent that can equally be misused against honest reviewers, so tread carefully. The recourse page has the measured steps.
Sources
- The CCPA can penalise misleading advertisements up to ten lakh rupees first offence and fifty lakh for repeats; influencers are equally liable for false endorsements. — Consumer Protection Act 2019; CCPA; Supreme Court of India (2024). https://consumeraffairs.nic.in/ · checked 2026-06-04