The CCPA has fired notices at IndiaMART, Justdial, and others for letting anyone browse and buy explosive precursors with the same ease they’d order a phone case.
India’s Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has launched regulatory action against five online platforms for hosting the sale and advertisement of hazardous chemicals and explosive substances without adequate safeguards. The platforms named are IndiaMART, Justdial, Sigma-Aldrich India, Dial4Trade, and ExportersIndia.
Eight formal notices have been issued in total, demanding details on seller identities, licensing compliance, buyer verification procedures, quantities sold, and regulatory approvals. Authorities have also shared the seller data with the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO) for further action.
What Was on Sale, Exactly
This is where it gets alarming. The substances flagged include ammonium nitrate, gunpowder, picric acid, and pentaerythritol tetranitrate, better known as PETN. These are not niche industrial curiosities.
PETN is a high explosive used in detonators and shaped charges. Ammonium nitrate was the primary agent behind the 2020 Beirut port explosion. The CCPA noted these substances are either restricted, controlled, or outright prohibited under Indian law, and that their online availability “may expose consumers to serious safety risks and unlawful supply channels.”
The Classic “We’re just a Directory” Defence
IndiaMART, the largest B2B marketplace in the lot, has a well-worn playbook for these situations. In court filings from 2025, the platform described itself as a “digital yellow pages” and a “passive intermediary” with no obligation to proactively monitor listings until instructed by a court or regulator.
That argument was tested last September when the Delhi High Court had to temporarily restrain the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation from pursuing criminal action against the platform over the sale of unapproved medicines.
Regulators had sent IndiaMART repeated notices about illegal pharmaceutical listings between June 2024 and July 2025, which the company contested on the grounds that drug sale laws simply did not apply to its services.
The hazardous chemicals case arrives, then, not as a one-off, but as the latest chapter in an ongoing story about what responsibilities marketplace platforms carry for what they choose to list.
The Government’s Position
The Ministry of Consumer Affairs was pointed in its statement, emphasising that online platforms and intermediaries must exercise due diligence and ensure strict compliance with all applicable legal and regulatory requirements before permitting the listing, advertisement, or sale of such substances.
That sentence is doing a lot of work. It is essentially saying that “we didn’t list it ourselves” is no longer a sufficient defence.
The CCPA also convened a meeting with PESO officials to review the broader regulatory framework governing explosive substances, suggesting this action is part of a wider tightening rather than a standalone crackdown.
Not the First Rodeo
Earlier this year, the CCPA had already fined e-commerce platforms over the unauthorised sale of walkie-talkies operating on restricted UHF frequencies used by police and emergency services. The authority identified over 16,900 non-compliant listings, with many products falsely marketed as licence-free. The pattern is consistent: a dangerous product category surfaces online, regulators scramble, notices go out.
What is changing is the severity of the substances involved. Walkie-talkies are a nuisance. Gunpowder is not.
Our take
“We Didn’t Sell It” is Not a Defence Anymore
The “intermediary defence” has been extraordinarily convenient for marketplace platforms, and it has served them well for years. If a seller lists something illegal, the platform shrugs, points at its terms of service, and waits for a court order before acting. That model might have made sense when the worst thing slipping through the cracks was a counterfeit handbag.
When the product in question is a high explosive, the logic collapses. The Indian government seems to be slowly arriving at the same conclusion, and the CCPA’s growing appetite for issuing notices suggests regulators are losing patience with the passive intermediary argument.
Whether these notices translate into actual penalties, or into platforms genuinely rethinking their listing practices, is the real question. Based on history, scepticism is warranted. But the direction of travel looks right.
