Procedural law is intended to facilitate and not to obstruct the course of substantive justice.

India’s consumer protection mechanism was established to create a forum that would be economical, summary, expeditious, and free from the rigours of ordinary civil proceedings. However, forty years on, and despite the new Consumer Protection Act, 2019, consumer litigation in India resembles the same civil court system, which the mechanism intended to shield consumers from.

The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 (“Act”) expressly provides that the law is meant “to establish authorities for timely and effective administration and settlement of consumers’ disputes.” The statutory exclusion of the Civil Procedure Code and the Evidence Act was intended to ensure speedy disposal of Consumer proceedings, which were meant to be uncomplicated, permitting complainants to appear and plead their own cases, with forums guided by equity and justice.

Yet, in practise, consumer forums continue to insist on exhaustive pleadings, follow hyper-technical procedures, hear technical objections, receive lengthy evidence, grant repeated adjournments and adopt procedural compliances akin to ordinary civil litigation. The Supreme Court itself has warned against this trend. In Alpha G184 Owners Association v. Magnum International Trading Company Pvt. Ltd., the Court observed that a “pedantic and hyper-technical approach” in consumer complaints would damage the very concept of consumerism.

Even where service providers admit delay, deficiency or contractual breach, consumer forums often continue to follow hyper-technical procedures, deferring adjudication for years. It is obvious that a party who has no defence would resort to these technicalities to delay and frustrate the process.

The problem is particularly serious because consumer disputes frequently involve matters concerning delayed insurance claims, defective medical treatment, housing disputes, fraudulent e-commerce transactions, and banking deficiencies. These are not minor grievances; for many, they involve savings, homes, healthcare and financial security.

Under the Act, an endeavour is to be made to decide complaints within three months from receipt of notice by the opposite party, where no product testing is required and within five months where analysis or testing is necessary. Adjournments are not to be granted as a routine, and reasons thereof must be recorded. The Supreme Court has also held that a response to a consumer complaint cannot be filed beyond forty-five days. Thus, both legislative and judicial intent favour expeditious disposal of consumer disputes.

However, ground realities are dramatically different.

A March 2026 report cited by The Hindu found that pendency in consumer courts had risen by nearly 21% between 2020 and 2024, with pending cases exceeding 5.15 lakh. The report noted that several States had 70–80% cases pending beyond three years. On July 29, 2026, the Centre has informed Lok Sabha that 5,93,109 consumer cases are pending across the three forums.

The IJR – Consumer Justice Report 2026, cited by The Times of India highlighted that the National Commission, the State Commission and the District Consumer Forums take an average of 371, 324 and 434 days respectively to dispose of matters. The Statesman reported that nearly 35% of cases in state consumer forums have remained pending for more than three years.

The widening gap between legislative promise and ground reality raises a fundamental question: if consumer disputes take years to resolve, then how are consumer courts any different from ordinary civil courts?

Another major contributor to delayed adjudication is the adjournment culture. Repeated adjournments are routinely granted for procedural compliances, filing replies, producing documents, or addressing technical objections, leading to matters getting listed months apart, and dates wasted without any substantive progress. This only goes to validate the Bollywood expression, ‘tareek pe tareek’!

Consumers cannot afford prolonged litigation, unlike the opposite parties, who are corporations with deep financial resources. Every adjournment leads not only to additional legal fees, travel expenses, or missed workdays, but also to physical and emotional exhaustion.

Even where service providers acknowledge delay or deficiency, consumer forums often continue to mechanically follow procedural steps rather than decisively adjudicating liability and compensation. There is also a need for a meaningful assessment of the cost imposed by consumer forums, which are often so nominal that they do not even cover the basic expenses of attending the hearings. Instead of working as deterrent, the same is abused by nefarious parties to delay adjudication, which discourages aggrieved consumers and financially exhaust them into unreasonable settlements or abandonment altogether.

No doubt that consumer forums must maintain fairness, follow due process and allow an opportunity to be heard. The problem lies not in the procedure but in procedural absolutism, even in cases where there is acknowledgement. Fairness should be for both sides and in the context of the proceedings.

One of the principal reasons behind the collapse of timely delivery of consumer justice is the shortage of members, presidents, and staff across consumer forums.

The Supreme Court has taken cognisance of widespread vacancies and inadequate infrastructure across consumer forums, and initiated suo motu proceedings in In Re: Inaction of the Governments in Appointing President and Members/Staff of Districts and State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission and Inadequate Infrastructure Across India. The proceedings exposed a reality where numerous district and state forums were operating without adequate judicial members, technical members, stenographers, clerks, and support staff.

In the said proceedings, on September 2. 2026, the Supreme Court observed the need for immediate attention from the government on the concerns raised in the report submitted by the President of the National Commission on the pendency of cases, composition, average disposal rate, estimated time for disposal of pending cases, and the need to increase its strength.  

The Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, in its analysis Consumer Forum Paralysis, noted that despite a sanctioned strength of 12 members, the vacancies and imbalance between judicial and technical members have resulted in the passing of orders that are subject to further litigation.

Vacancies in judicial or quasi-judicial forums are not merely administrative, but directly impact access to justice. Dates are often given due to the lack of quorum, or because complete quorum assembles on a particular day. Every vacant post means fewer benches, fewer hearings, longer dates, and a mounting caseload.

Another related issue is inadequate infrastructure. Numerous district forums continue to function from cramped courtrooms, without proper facilities, poor digital infrastructure, or effective record management systems. Consumer courts continue to heavily rely on physical files, manual listings, and offline hearings.

These become hindrance to justice delivery where disputes are no longer traditional disputes between buyer and seller, but increasingly involve e-commerce, digital transactions, fintech platforms, and online service providers. The Supreme Court, during the suo motu proceedings had also highlighted and expressed concern regarding the inadequate infrastructure of the consumer forums.

Statistics cannot capture the cost of mental harassment caused due to delayed justice. A delayed insurance claim may deprive a family of financial security after a medical emergency. A delayed housing dispute may force homebuyers to pay both rent and loan EMIs for years, without possession of the home they had long dreamt of. A delayed medical negligence complaint may deny closure to grieving families.

In practice, claims for mental harassment are either completely ignored, or a meagre sum is awarded just to check the box. Even after successful consumer litigation over several years, the relief is too late to matter and remains a mere paper victory. It is high time that the cost should commensurate with the impact of the broken trust, and not merely based on the sale price of the particular product or service.

The success of consumer law cannot be measured by statutes or forums, but in delivering timely and meaningful relief, along with commensurate and deterrent compensation against erring products or providers. In a people centric statutory framework, mounting backlogs, infrastructural neglect, and procedural rigidity cannot have any place, as they completely erode public faith in accessible justice.

As the Supreme Court cautioned, hyper-technicality can damage the very concept of consumerism; consumer courts must therefore return to first principles: Simplicity, Accessibility, Flexibility, and Speed.

Ultimately, it is the consumer courts that must determine whether, in cases where a service provider has already acknowledged its liability to refund but nevertheless failed to do so, the consumer forum should immediately direct the refund or still require the parties to undergo procedural litigation and reach the same conclusion.

It is high time for society to hear the distress call of a helpless consumer, which resonates in the immortal lines of Shylock in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, in which he demands the law to be upheld:

“If you deny me, fie upon your law - There is no force in the decrees of Venice” (Act 4, Scene 1)

At the same time, frivolous consumer complaints must be discouraged at the threshold, as their continued pendency defeats the very purpose of the Consumer Protection Act. Such complaints must be dealt with firmly, including invoking appropriate penal provisions, if necessitated. Otherwise, the sovereign mandate underlying the legislation risks being rendered meaningless.

About the author: Vikas Dutta is a Partner and Siddharth Silwal is an Associate Partner at Kapil Sapra & Associates.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s). The opinions presented do not necessarily reflect the views of Bar & Bench.

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