Can retailers charge you for carry bags? Here’s what consumer court orders say

A longstanding issue

The roots of the problem go back to 2011, when the Centre brought out the Plastic Waste (Management and Handling) Rules which mandated that “no carry bags shall be made available free of cost by retailers to consumers”.

Carry bags in this case meant plastic bags, and the rule was meant to curb the use of plastic bags. Retailers, however, exploited this rule and started charging for paper and cloth bags as well, which was not explicitly mentioned in the rules.

Moreover, civic bodies had to determine the price of the plastic carry bags first, taking into consideration the cost of inputs and the cost of waste management. But this didn’t happen.

Noticing that retailers were charging for paper bags and civic bodies had failed to fix the cost of carry bags, the Union government amended these rules in 2016. It introduced a new section called “Explicit pricing of carry bags”, which asked retailers selling plastic bags to pay a certain amount as a plastic waste management fee and also to put up notices in outlets stating that plastic bags would be provided only on payment.

However, even this didn’t work. The government brought another amendment in 2018 which altogether omitted the 2016 section. The new rules didn’t mention anything about the pricing of carry bags and, like previous rules, didn’t say anything specific about paper carry bags.

What retailers say

Therefore, retailers argue that there is no law which explicitly states that carry bags have to be supplied for free to the customers. They say the Plastic Waste Management Rules do not forbid the sale of all plastic carry bags by the stores to the customers, and there is no bar imposed on stores on charging money for carry bags. Since December 31, 2022, there has been a ban on the sale of plastic carry bags which are thinner than 120 microns.

Another point raised by retailers is a concept called ‘polluters pay’ — it requires that those who are responsible for pollution bear the costs of managing it to prevent damage to human health or the environment. Retailers hold customers as polluters and therefore, charge them for the plastic carry bags.

So can retailers legally charge customers for carry bags?

Yes, they can but several consumer courts have held that charging consumers for bags without informing them beforehand is illegal. For instance, in the recent Lifestyle case, the consumer court in Delhi held that providing information about carry bag charges during the payment process causes harassment to the customer. It also affects the consumer’s right to make an informed decision to opt for a specific outlet or not, the court added.

Similarly, in 2021, a consumer court in Hyderabad ruled that the retailer, who was sued by a consumer, must provide free carry bags to all customers if the bags have the company’s logo printed on them. However, the court also held that the retailer was at liberty to charge for the plain carry bags (without logos) with prior intimation and consent of the customers.

The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum in Chandigarh in a 2020 judgement called the practice of not providing prior information to the consumer about the cost of the paper bag ‘arbitrary’ and ‘highhanded’.