Consumer Justice Report 2026, Status, Challenges, Key Findings

The India Justice Report (IJR) released its Consumer Justice Report 2026 in March 2026, the first comprehensive, data-driven assessment of India’s three-tiered consumer dispute redressal system covering District, State, and National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissions under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. It highlights structural weaknesses, rising pendency, and institutional gaps affecting timely justice for consumers.

About the Consumer Justice Report 2026

• The Consumer Justice Report 2026 is published by the India Justice Report (IJR), a collaboration of DAKSH, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Common Cause, Centre for Social Justice, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, and TISS-Prayas.
• It assessed 11 indicators across five themes – Human Resources, Gender Diversity, Workload, Infrastructure, and Budgets, scoring each on a scale of 1-10 using the geometric mean to reduce distortion from outliers.
• Data was collected from RTI responses of 35 State Consumer Dispute Redressal Commissions, parliamentary questions, and 28.57 lakh case records from 2010 to 2024 from CONFONET/e-Jagriti.
• The study covered 19 large and mid-sized states and 9 small states (ranked separately), assessed 7 Union Territories (not ranked), and examined 51 district commissions in state capitals in detail.

Consumer Justice Report 2026 Key Findings

Rising Case Pendency:

• The report reveals a sharp rise in pending cases and mounting vacancies, severely weakening the consumer grievance redressal framework, far exceeding the statutory timelines of three to five months.
• Case pendency has risen steeply between 2020 and 2024 by 21%, with the number of cases increasing to more than 5.15 lakh from around 88,000

Delayed Disposal:

• Section 38(7) of CPA 2019 mandates disposal within 3 to 5 months of notice. In reality, 35% of all pending SCDRC cases have remained unresolved for more than three years.
• States like Kerala, Jharkhand, and Jammu & Kashmir had 70%-80% of cases pending beyond three years. 
• Among the states, the highest proportion of cases pending for over three years was observed in Kerala at 79.2%, followed by Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir at 70.8% each, and Uttar Pradesh at 61.8%.

Institutional Vacancies:

• About half of the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissions (SCDRCs) and one-third of district commissions were functioning without a president.
• Nearly 40% of sanctioned member posts were vacant. 
• In several States, including Tamil Nadu, Arunachal Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, SCDRCs had no members at all
• Among the large and mid-sized states, only Bihar and Haryana filled both member and president posts.

Gender Representation: 

• The Consumer Protection (Appointment) Rules, 2020 mandate a minimum of one woman in every commission.
• Women’s share in SCDRC presidents and members declined from 35% (2021) to 29% (2025), touching a five-year low of 23.2% in 2024.
• In 2024, only Delhi and Sikkim had a woman SCDRC president.
• Jharkhand maintained an all-male SCDRC staff throughout the period.
• Nine of 20 SCDRCs failed to meet their own state’s statutory women’s reservation quota for staff appointments.
• Women constitute just 26% of total SCDRC staff.

Sectoral Complaints

• The report highlights that consumer grievances are concentrated in sectors like insurance, housing, and banking.
• It reflects systemic grievance-handling failures in three sectors with direct daily impact on ordinary citizens. It signals the need for sectoral regulators (IRDAI, RBI, RERA) to strengthen their first-mile grievance redressal rather than channeling all disputes to consumer courts.

Limited Use of Mediation

• Alternative dispute resolution mechanisms are underutilized, slowing case disposal.
• Across 21 SCDRCs, only 163 trained mediators were empanelled in 2025.
• Large, high-caseload commissions in states such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Delhi reported having no trained mediators.
• Only 134 cases were referred to mediation across nine state commissions over four years (2022-March 2025), with a settlement rate of just 20%.
• Lok Adalat referrals fell 70%  from 1,463 cases (2022) to 446 cases (2024)  despite a 2022 Ministry announcement promising Lok Adalat-led clearance drives.

State-wise Performance

• Among large states, Andhra Pradesh recorded the highest case disposal, with only 4.8% of cases pending beyond three years. 
• In contrast, Telangana ranked lowest among large states despite a high disposal rate, due to gaps in leadership and insufficient coverage. 
• Meghalaya emerged as the top-performing small state, while Tamil Nadu achieved the highest clearance rate of 114.6%.
• States such as Kerala, Jharkhand, and Jammu and Kashmir have 70%-80% of cases pending beyond three years.

Budget allocations: 

• Total budget allocations for 21 SCDRCs increased 52% over four years, reaching ₹686 crore, but average utilisation was 85%.
• Jharkhand reduced its budget by 47% despite rising caseloads.
• Uttarakhand overutilised its budget by 512% due to under-allocation.
• Karnataka received the highest allocation (₹53.71 crore) and Bihar the lowest (₹3.18 crore), showing misalignment with caseload.

Low Data Transparency:

• Data transparency remains weak. As of June 2025, only 20 out of 35 SCDRCs had an official website, and only three commissions had uploaded annual reports online. Nine major states did not provide long-pendency data, making it difficult to assess the true scale of the problem.

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Challenges Identified

The Consumer Justice Report 2026 highlights several factors that have significantly weakened India’s consumer grievance redressal system:

• Lack of transparency in case disposal.
• High pendency of cases, undermining consumer confidence.
• Operational inefficiencies due to vacancies and weak staffing.
• Declining gender representation in leadership positions.
• Limited use of mediation and alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.

Recommendations

Consumer Justice Report 2026 calls for urgent reforms, including time-bound appointments, improved staffing, better budget utilisation, and greater reliance on alternative dispute resolution to address mounting pendency.

• Enforce strict timelines for appointments and link grants to compliance.
• Allocate budgets based on caseload, filings, and district coverage.
• Build the mediation ecosystem with training centres, empanelment standards, and referral quotas.
• Ensure one commission per district with central support for smaller states.
• Strengthen sectoral grievance handling at IRDAI, RBI, and RERA.
• Improve gender representation beyond the statutory minimum.
• Mandate monthly data uploads for vacancies, pendency, and budget utilisation.