Companies Buying Software to Run Business Are Not ‘Consumers’, Can't File Consumer Complaints: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court recently held that a company purchasing software to organise or automate its business processes cannot claim to be a “consumer” under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 [ Poly Medicure Ltd. vs. M/S Brillio Technologies Pvt. Ltd. ]. A Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said transactions carried out to streamline a company’s commercial operations amount to a purchase for a commercial purpose, which is expressly excluded from the definition of “consumer” under Section 2(1)(d) of the 1986 Act. The case arose from a consumer complaint filed by Poly Medicure before the Delhi State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in 2019. The company, engaged in the export and import of medical devices, had purchased a software licence for “Brillio Opti Suite” fr