Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has recently ordered the State of Telangana, the Commissioner of Police of Hyderabad, and the Commissioner of Police of Cyberabad, to refrain from taking any action against the distributors of QNET.
QNET Distributors Welfare Association earlier in the year had filed a Writ Petition alleging that the police authorities in Telangana were not following the State’s notification containing the Telangana Direct Selling Guidelines, 2017 and were indiscriminately registering criminal cases against the independent representatives of QNET’s Indian sub-franchisee Vihaan Direct Selling (India) Pvt. Ltd. The state guidelines were issued pursuant to Advisory contained in GSR 1013 (E) dated 26.10.2016 of the Department of Consumer Affairs, Government of India.
The Order passed by the Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao of the High Court now clearly refrains the Home Department and the Police from taking any criminal action against members of the QNET Distributors Welfare Association, an independent body comprising of distributors of the company’s direct selling business.
The State Home Department has agreed to follow the guidelines, which contains G.O.Ms. No 29 dated 01.12.2017 and will direct the Commissioners of Police in Hyderabad and Cyberabad to follow the same.
Commenting on the judgment, the QNET spokesperson said, “The order passed by the High Court reinstates the fact that the Guidelines issued by the Centre are defacto law and that police cannot be invoking the criminal provisions without first allowing the Guidelines to act in matters of dispute between the customers and the company. We are pleased with the judgment and will continue to maintain our commitment to adhere to fulfilling all legal obligations set out by the Direct Selling Guidelines.”
QNET, and its Indian sub-franchisee Vihaan Direct Selling strongly condemned the unlawful arrests by the Cyberabad police authorities. The action taken by the police has no civil and criminal law conformance and is in direct contempt of the order granted by the Supreme Court of India that has directed all states including the state of Telangana not to take any coercive action against the company.
[source_without_link]NSS[/source_without_link]