The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has imposed a penalty of Rs 3 lakh on Vision IAS for deceptive advertising about its students' success in the civil services examination. The authority found that Vision IAS deliberately withheld specific course information, creating a misleading impression about its success rates in such exams, a statement by Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution said. The institute's advertisement claimed "10 in Top 10 selections in CSE 2020 from various programs of Vision IAS" and prominently displayed successful candidates and pictures. Vision IAS mentioned the course opted by AIR 1- UPSC CSE 2020 i.e. GS Foundation Batch Classroom Student but deliberately concealed information regarding the courses chosen by the other nine successful candidates.
This concealment created misleading impression that the remaining nine candidates were also enrolled in the 'GS Foundation Batch Classroom Student' course which was not true. Out of remaining 9 candidates- 1 took foundation courses, 6 took test series related to Pre and Mains stage and 2 took Abhyaas test. Further, CCPA examined the digital profiles and fee receipts submitted by Vision IAS and discovered that the Foundation course is the most expensive, costing ?1,40,000/-, whereas the Abhyaas one-time prelims mock test costs only Rs 750. As per the available information, Rank 1 enrolled in the Foundation Course 2018 (Classroom/Offline), and Rank 8 enrolled in the Online Foundation Course 2015 of the Institute. CCPA found that Rank 2, Rank 3, Rank 5, Rank 7, Rank 8, and Rank 10 of UPSC CSE 2020 enrolled in the GS Mains Test Series. This comes into play in Mains examination i.e. after clearing prelims examination which is a screening test wherein approximately only 1% students able to clear the said stage, making it the toughest stage with the most competition.
The abovementioned students took GS Mains test series which is one of the various components of the Mains examination which implies that the aforementioned candidates cleared the prelims and Interview stages on their own, without any contribution of opposite party. Additionally, Rank 4 and Rank 9 of UPSC CSE 2020 enrolled in Abhyaas test, a mock test for the Prelims exam. Rank 6 enrolled in the GS Prelims Test Series. This implies that the abovementioned candidates cleared the Mains and Interview stages on their own, without any contribution of opposite party. By deliberately concealing about the specific course opted by each of the successful candidates, the Vision IAS made it look like all the courses offered by it had the same success rate for the consumers, which was not right.
These facts are important for the potential students to decide on the courses that may be suitable for them and should not have been concealed in the advertisement. CCPA has observed that several coaching institutes use the same successful candidate's names and photographs in their advertisements while deliberately concealing important information about specific course opted by them to create a deception that the successful candidates were regular classroom students at coaching institute or were students of several courses offered in the advertisement.
The commission imposed a penalty to protect "young and impressionable aspirants" from potentially deceptive marketing practices, the statement said. The CCPA has so far issued 46 notices to various coaching institutes for misleading advertisements and unfair trade practice. It has imposed a penalty of Rs 74.60 lakh on 23 coaching institutes and directed them to discontinue the misleading advertisements.