Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), a self regulatory body of ad agencies, has introduced a new initiative to take immediate action on misleading advertisements.

Now, Suspension Pending Investigation (SPI) will be implemented if an advertisement is seen as gravely obscene, indecent, vulgar or against public interest, and will be required to be withdrawn immediately pending decision of its Consumer Complaint Council (CCC). The complaints council will take a decision at the earliest within 30 days of whether the advertisement needs to be withdrawn or not, ASCI said in a statement.

ASCI said that this was in line with the code of some of the global self regulatory organisations.

ASCI’s Chairman Arvind Sharma said, “Suspension Pending Investing will ensure immediate action against ads that are clearly seen as against public interest. This initiative will go a long way in getting seriously offending ads removed immediately before they cause any damage to the consumers and society in general.”

He said ASCI expected that the advertising sector, consisting of advertisers, ad agencies and media, will support this very important initiative wholeheartedly to protect the interests of Indian consumers and general public.

The ad council in the recent past has taken other initiatives to speed up its decision making process like reduction in complaint redressal time from 45 to 30 days. It has also introduced the Fast Track Complaint Redressal process which provides decision against intra-industry complaints within seven days.

> meenakshi.v@thehindu.co.in

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