Product Manufacturer, Product Seller and Product Service Provider under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019

Chapter VI does not sue 'the trader'; it sues three precisely defined actors, and the basis of liability changes with the defendant. The product manufacturer answers for how the product was made (Section 84), the product service provider for how it was serviced (Section 85), and the product seller for defined failures in the chain of sale (Section 86), with Section 87 supplying the exceptions. Getting the category right is therefore the first step of every product-liability action: the same accident yields different questions against each defendant. This note explains the three definitions and the distinct liability each carries.

1. Product Manufacturer — Section 2(36)

The definition sweeps in everyone whose hands shaped the product: the maker of the whole or of parts; the assembler of others' components; the brand owner who puts his mark on another's product (own-label retail and contract manufacturing, the marketer answers as manufacturer even though the factory is someone else's); the maker who also distributes; the designer, fabricator and re-manufacturer (so the design house and the refurbisher are within); and the seller who manufactures. The practical consequence: in a component failure, both the component maker and the assembler of the final product are manufacturers, and the complainant may proceed against either or both.

1.1 The manufacturer's liability: Section 84

A product manufacturer is liable in a product-liability action where the product: contains a manufacturing defect; is defective in design; deviates from manufacturing specifications; does not conform to an express warranty; or fails to contain adequate instructions of correct usage to prevent harm, or adequate warnings of improper or incorrect usage. And by Section 84(2), the manufacturer is liable even if he proves he was not negligent or fraudulent in making the express warranty: against the manufacturer, the regime is one of strict liability, the defect and the causation suffice, the state of mind is irrelevant.

2. Product Seller — Section 2(37)

The seller is the chain of commerce: importer, distributor, retailer, lessor, installer, marketer, everyone who in the course of business places the product for commercial purpose, with e-commerce entities reached through the marketing and placing language and the express mention of the electronic service provider. The exclusions mark the definition's edges: the seller of immovable property is out (land is not a product), except the builder selling constructed houses or flats; the professional, the doctor or consultant whose use of a product is incidental to opinion and skill, is out, his failures travel as deficiency in service; and the pure financier and the passive lessor who never had a real chance to inspect are out, because liability follows control over the product, not money or paper title.

2.1 The seller's liability: Section 86

A product seller who is not a product manufacturer is liable only in defined situations, each reflecting a reason to treat him as more than a conduit: he exercised substantial control over designing, testing, manufacturing, packaging or labelling of the product that caused harm; he altered or modified the product and the alteration was a substantial factor in the harm; he made an express warranty of his own, independent of the manufacturer's, and the product failed it; the manufacturer is not known, or cannot be identified, or a decree against him cannot be enforced (the seller then stands in as the consumer's reachable defendant, the rule that keeps the importer of anonymous foreign goods answerable); or he failed to exercise reasonable care in assembling, inspecting or maintaining the product, or did not pass on the manufacturer's warnings and instructions. Outside these gateways, the ordinary retailer of a sealed, branded product is not the Chapter VI defendant, the manufacturer is.

3. Product Service Provider — Section 2(38)

One line, but it closes the gap between product and service: the installer, the authorised service centre, the repairer, the maintenance contractor, the tester, anyone whose service concerns a product, is within the chapter, so the harm caused by a badly serviced product does not escape merely because the product itself left the factory sound.

3.1 The service provider's liability: Section 85

A product service provider is liable where: the service was faulty, imperfect, deficient or inadequate in quality, nature or manner of performance required by law or contract, the deficiency standard imported into the liability chapter; there was an act of omission or commission or negligence or conscious withholding of any information which caused harm; he did not issue adequate instructions or warnings to prevent harm; or the service did not conform to an express warranty or the terms of the contract. The geyser that bursts after a negligent installation, the car whose brakes fail after a careless service, engage this section against the installer and the workshop.

4. Why the Categories Matter, and the Exceptions

Section 87 then supplies the exceptions common to the chapter: no liability where the product was misused, altered or modified by the consumer; and, in failure-to-warn claims, where the product was used in a workplace and warnings were given to the employer, where it was a component with warnings given to the purchaser and harm arose from the end product, where a product legally sold through an expert carried warnings to that expert, and where the danger was obvious or commonly known to the user, or the harm flowed from the user being under the influence of alcohol or a prescription drug not prescribed. One accident may engage several defendants at once, the maker on design, the seller on alteration, the workshop on service, and the complaint properly joins them all.

5. Related Topics and Provisions

• Product under Section 2(33) (Topic 20): the thing these actors answer for
• Harm under Section 2(22) (Topic 22): what the liability compensates
• Defect in goods (Topic 13): the defect concept the chapter builds on
• Deficiency in service (Topic 14): the standard echoed in Section 85
• Product liability action under Chapter VI: the procedure, in a later note