India, Sept. 26 -- The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has imposed a penalty of INR 2 Lakh on FirstCry subsidiary Digital Age Retail Pvt Ltd for "false and misleading price representations".

In a statement today, the CCPA said that the penalty was imposed following a consumer complaint that FirstCry displayed products with the representation "MRP inclusive of all taxes," while at the checkout stage, an additional GST was levied on the discounted price.

This practice, known as "drip pricing", reduced actual discounts for consumers, resulting in deceptive pricing. For instance, a product shown as having a 27% discount was effectively sold at only an 18.2% discount after the GST was applied.

"By representing the price as tax-...