On Wednesday last week, the Legal Metrology Department (LMD) busted a fraud of high pricing of items in high-end luxury store at Lower Parel in South Mumbai.
According to a report in Hindustan Times, the LMD conducted a raid in a renowned Italian multinational luxury leather goods retail outlet, and seized items Rs 1 crore from the store. The raid came after some customers complained against the store for selling its high-end leather shoes, bags and wallets at arbitrary prices.
Amitabh Gupta, director of LMD, told Hindustan Times, “All items in the store came with expensive price tags, which is common for such outlets.” The lower retail price of the pair of shoes that was selected by the customer was Rs 30,000, but the store priced that shoes at Rs 4.18 lakh. The LMD has now asked store to show the price declared to the customs during imports, added Amitabh Gupta.
When the LMD asked the store to furnish the valid reasons for the price charged for items, the store could not furnish any valid reasons, and the LMD then seized the displayed articles and registered a case against the store under Rule 6 (1) of the Packed Commodity Rules of the Legal Metrology Act.
Amitabh Gupta told Hindustan Times, “The total price of the seized articles was more than Rs 1 crore, of which a sample of goods worth around 5 lakh has been taken into possession for verification with the customs department. One is free to put any retail price on the imported items, but only after notifying the customs department about the import price. We are going to check with the customs about price declaration,”
The LMD is also planning to conduct series of raids on such multinational stores and verify if these stores are complying with price declaration rules.
