“Advertising At The Edge”: Ethical And Legal Regulations Of Women, Children, And Public Morality In Indian Media Law
- IJLLR Journal
- 1 hour ago
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Divya Dhar, Symbiosis Law School, Pune
INTRODUCTION
The Indian advertising market with a valuation of 70,000 crores (2024) is at the nexus of commercial expression, moral duty and constitutional safeguarding of the vulnerable groups. The regulatory framework of India, including the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act,1995, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) Guidelines (2018), the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act,1986, the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, and the Information Technology Act,2000, tries to strike a balance between these tensions. Nevertheless, there are still systematic loopholes in implementing constitutional promises of gender equality and child protection in advertisement regulation.
Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India made dignity a basic right that includes the freedom of systematic objectification. But the Indian advertisement systematically abuses this dignity: 73% of advertisements made of women keep them in stereotypical characters, and 58% of advertisements made by children have false health claims. Vishakha v. State of Rajasthan, Subramanian Swamy v. Union of India, Shreya Singhal v. Union of India offers constitutional basis of protection regulation. The study will focus on the question of whether the legal systems in India are sufficient to halt systematic exploitation of women and children, in terms of advertising, and what the statutory changes need to be, in order to be constitutional.
NEED FOR THIS RESEARCH
The current Indian legal systems do not put in place constitutional safeguards against vulnerable groups. First, no extensive statutory framework can transform constitutional gender equality (Articles 14-15) and dignity (Justice K.S. Puttaswamy) into standards of advertising regulation. Second, 58 percent of advertisements targeting children do not comply with substantiation standards, which are explicitly defined in the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, Schedule VI, as children are classified as vulnerable population groups. The research question is do constitutional imperatives demand systematic regulation of advertising through statute rather than self-regulation by ASCI, which has attained a 35-42% compliance compared to 6478% compliance with statutory frameworks in 37 countries worldwide?
