The Andhra Pradesh High Court has quashed penal proceedings initiated against Samsung India Electronics for not printing the screen dimensions of its smartphones on the retail box. Setting aside the compounding notices issued by the state's Legal Metrology Department, the court clarified that declaring physical dimensions on packaging is not an absolute rule for every pre-packaged product under the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011, and applies only when size directly defines how the product is valued and priced.
The matter began after a June 2020 inspection at an electronics store in Kadapa district, where enforcement officers seized three retail packages of the Samsung Galaxy A31. Metrology authorities claimed the missing screen measurements breached Sections 18 and 36 of the Legal Metrology Act, 2009, along with Rules 4 and 6(1)(f) of the 2011 packaging guidelines. Samsung challenged the notices before the High Court, arguing that modern tech gadgets are not traded by length or area like conventional commodities, and that invoking penal actions where no consumer deception took place was unjustified.
Delivering the verdict, Justice Subba Reddy Satti explained that the requirement under Rule 6(1)(f) is conditional, designed primarily for items sold by dimension—such as textiles, towels, or bedsheets. The bench laid down a three-step test to determine when dimensions must appear on the packaging: the product must ordinarily be bought and sold by measurement, the dimensions must have a direct bearing on its retail price, and a regular buyer must base their purchase decision primarily on that physical metric.
Applying this benchmark to smartphones, the High Court observed that consumers evaluate mobile devices on specifications like processing speed, internal memory, camera quality, brand reliability, and overall retail price, rather than just physical dimensions. While screen size is certainly a factor for buyers, the court noted that the screen is simply one integrated part of an intricate piece of technology, not an independent commodity requiring separate dimensional disclosures on the box. Ruling that enforcement officials had pushed penal regulations far past their intended legislative scope, the court struck down the impugned notices and closed the case against Samsung.