If you visit National Portal of India PAGE on ‘Bureau of Indian Standards’, you will find following information:
Hallmarking - Hallmarking of Gold Jewellery started in April 2000 on voluntary basis under BIS Act, 1986.
Similarly, on BIS website PAGE on ‘BIS Certification Scheme for hallmarking of Gold Jewellery’, you will find following information:
Government of
Both these statements are misleading as this BIS Hallmarking Scheme has no legal backing of BIS Act, 1986, Rules and regulations.
Section 15 (1) of BIS Act, 1986 says that the Bureau may, by order, grant, renew, suspend or cancel a license in such manner as may be determined by regulations. BIS, so far, has not made any Regulations for operating Certification Scheme for Hallmarking of Gold Jewellery.
This issue has been raised by Mr. A L Makhijani, President of Forum for Good Governance, in September 2009 with BIS through a RTI application. BIS gave incomplete and misleading information. Mr. Makhijani submitted a representation to the Prime Minister in January 2010 with copies to Shri Sharad Pawar (Minster in-charge of BIS) and Secretary of Department of Consumer affairs, controlling ministry of BIS.
I have also raised this issue on my blog MANAK - RTI exposes another illegality in BIS – Hallmarking Scheme
Till date, BIS and Government have not taken any action to notify regulations for Hallmarking Scheme. The scheme continues to be run without any legal backing of BIS Act; and both BIS and Government continue to mislead the consumer.
This is a very unfortunate situation. What a consumer is supposed to do when Government itself violates the law? Prime Minister has been informed about this illegality. Mainister in-charge of BIS and Secretary of controlling ministry have also been similarly informed. But no body is ready to do any thing. Sometimes I feel that the both BIS and Government are cheating the Indian consumer.
