Rising disposable incomes, digital transformation, young consumers, and the attitudinal shift in spending are all changing India's consumption patterns.

By next year, India will be the third largest consumer market in the world. These developments, coupled with increasing cross-border e-commerce, the complexity of global products, AI-driven devices and services, all call for urgent measures to step up consumer protection. This requires urgent strengthening of the consumer justice system to meet the increasing challenges that the consumers will face in a complex, globalised market.

A quantitative analysis of the capacity and performance of consumer commissions, published by a civil society group - India Justice Report - comes in handy here. The comprehensive study, titled 'Consumer Justice Report, 2026' (CJR), draws on government data available in the public domain and obtained through the Right to Information, to pinpoint the structural weaknesses in the system and the gaps in implementation.

A reading of the report in fact reminds me of the aphorism - "the more things change, the more they stay the same". Because, even though we have a new consumer protection law, some of the problems that persisted with the consumer justice system under the old law of 1986 continue even today. I say it with reference to the continued indifference of many state governments and UTs to fulfilling the statutory mandate vis-a-vis the Consumer Protection (CP) Act of 2019. For example, the adjudicating members, comprising judicial and non-judicial members, form the fulcrum of the consumer justice system. Yet state governments have been consistently neglecting their appointments. This has been a persistent problem from the very beginning. And now, one of the key points that emerges from the CJR is the large-scale vacancies in the consumer courts and its consequences on the quality of justice.

The CJR shows that last year, 17 of the 35 State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissions (SCDRCs) did not have a president (judicial member). Three state commissions did not have any (non-judicial) member, while seven of them had only 50 per cent of the mandated strength of members.

Since most consumer cases go before the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissions (DCDRCs) because of the pecuniary jurisdiction (up to Rs 50 lakh), their infrastructure is of utmost importance. However, out of a total sanctioned strength of 1,384 DCDRC members in the country (2025), only 849 members were in place! Out of 646 sanctioned posts of presidents of DCDRCs, only 439 were in position.

Similarly, under the CP Act, there should be at least one DCDRC for each district. Yet, the 2025 data shows that there were only 685 DCDRCs for a total of 775 districts.

In fact, the latest data (February 11, 2026) provided by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs to a Parliament question further amplifies the problem of persistent vacancies. As on December 31, 2025, there were 548 vacancies in DCDRCs around the country and 93 vacancies in SCDRCs. And as of January 2026, over 5.74 lakh cases were pending before the commissions, the largest being 4.36 lakh before the DCDRCs.

The CP Act puts a timeframe of 90 days for disposal of cases. The CJR's analysis of case disposal shows that between 2020 and 2024, the district panels took on an average 409 days and 12 hearings to decide a case.

The state commisions took 236 days and an average of seven hearings, while the national panel took 280 days and six hearings during that period.