In the past six months, the national consumer disputes redressal commission (NCDRC) and the Supreme Court of India (SC) have delivered several consumer-friendly rulings on real-estate delays. It is a heartening development, given that housing remains the single biggest investment for most middle-class Indians and one of the top categories of consumer complaints.
On 20 February 2026, SC dismissed appeals by Parsvnath Developers Ltd and upheld an NCDRC order (Parsvnath Developers Ltd vs Mohit Khirbat & Ors). The Court slammed one-sided builder-buyer contracts and ruled that home-buyers cannot be forced to take possession of flats without a valid occupancy certificate (OC). It directed the developer to obtain the OC within six months while continuing to pay 8% simple interest on the delay until handover. A similar NCDRC order was passed in October 2025 against Jaipur-based Mantra Lifestyle Homes Pvt Ltd, directing full refunds with 9% interest for chronic delays in possession and OC.
In parallel, the central bureau of investigation (CBI) has intensified its probe into an alleged ‘unholy nexus’ between builders and banks. Following SC’s directions, CBI has registered multiple FIRs (initially 22 in July 2025, with further cases expanding the probe) against developers such as Jaypee, Supertech, Vatika and Ajnara, along with unnamed bank officials. The core allegation involves interest subvention schemes in which builders allegedly took loans in home-buyers’ names, promised to pay equated monthly instalments (EMIs) until possession. They then defaulted on their obligation forcing buyers to service loans for unfinished flats. The Supreme Court is examining the ‘unholy nexus’ between builders and banks to finance these schemes and then initiate recovery action against home-buyers.
These actions signal growing regulatory and judicial scrutiny. Yet, these high-profile interventions present an incomplete picture of state of consumer justice. The ground reality, as laid bare by the
Consumer Justice Report 2026: Assessing Capacity of Redressal Commissions in India (
https://indiajusticereport.org/), is far more sobering.
Housing, insurance, banking and e-commerce dominate consumer complaints, but most cases languish in dysfunctional district and state consumer forums that are riddled with vacancies and pendency, before reaching NCDRC or the apex court.
Consider some headline findings of the India Justice report, based on parliamentary data and Right to Information Act (RTI) applications.
- More than half the posts of president and members of the 35 state consumer commissions were vacant in 2025. Only four had a full complement of top officials.
- Some state commissions had no staff at all, while staff vacancies averaged 20%.
- Consequently, pendency of cases had jumped 21% between 2020 and 2024.
- As against the statutory promise of consumer cases being decided in three to five months, one in three cases remained stuck for over three years.
Mediation and Lok Adalats were touted as the flagship reform in the 2019 amendment to the Consumer Protection Act. In reality, they have been largely ignored. Fourteen state commissions (including Karnataka, Rajasthan and West Bengal) did not refer even a single case to mediation since 2022. Many commissions had a zero budgets allocated for mediation. Consequently, reference to mediation and Lok Adalats has collapsed over the years.
The report describes mediation as ‘symbolic rather than substantive’. In a system already strained by rising complaints, the near-total neglect of these faster, cheaper alternatives defeats the Act’s purpose. It also aligns with broader evidence that up to 90% of complainants abandon cases after two years of delay leading to a system effectively ‘designed to exhaust complainants’.
The same pattern appears under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act (RERA). While some authorities (such as Gurugram RERA) have cleared backlogs of pre-2025 cases, nationwide, over 100,000 of RERA complaints remain unresolved in several states, forcing many home-buyers into prolonged battles.
Food and medicine safety crisis
Another area that has seen an explosion of scandals is the safety of food and medicine. Social media further amplifies reports about large-scale adulteration of food and medicine drawing national attention to the role of regulators such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).
Not a day goes by without reports about adulterated milk, paneer, ghee, mango pulp or, even worse, cough syrups and medicines – or sale of expired products by re-labelling them. National outrage leads to headline-making action in a few high-profile cases, such as the adulterated ghee supplied to the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) for five long years; or CBI’s arrest of an FSSAI assistant director in a bribery case involving a private laboratory.
But FSSAI’s own data shows that as many as 17% of food samples fail safety standards and, despite actions such as recalls and penalties, large-scale adulteration continues. More importantly, FSSAI can ban manufacturers or impose fines, but the consumer, whose health is damaged, must still approach a consumer commission which is often plagued by vacancies and perennial staff shortages. The result: regulatory action at the top, but delayed or denied compensation at the ground level.
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as the upgraded national consumer helpline (NCH), the
Grahak-Nyay chatbot and the
e-Jagriti portal, can offer genuine help for pre-litigation guidance and simple refunds. In an earlier column (
The AI Revolution in Consumer Rights — And Why It Still Needs Watching) in February, I had noted how the use of AI had facilitated refunds worth tens of crores and resolved over a 100,000 of grievances digitally. They are useful supplements.
However, AI cannot fix the structural bottlenecks. A chatbot cannot appoint presidents and members, utilise lapsed budgets, mandate mediation referrals, or hear a ₹50-lakh adulteration or housing fraud case that has already been pending three years. Without time-bound appointments, full district coverage (one in 10 districts still lacks a district consumer disputes redressal commission -- DCDRC), enforced mediation and transparent data, technology alone cannot deliver the ‘timely and effective’ redress promised by the 2019 Act.
High-profile NCDRC orders, CBI probes and FSSAI penalties make for compelling headlines. AI chatbots and digital portals make for reassuring press releases. Some states, such as Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, have shown better performance on the Report’s ranking. But consumer justice, overall, remains weak. Consumers still have to wait for a long time for redress, or simply abandon the fight that is often at the cost of their health, savings and trust.
Until governments fill the benches on a war footing, enforce mediation, ensure that every district has a functioning commission and stop treating whistle-blowers as adversaries, the gap between promise and delivery will persist and it cannot be fixed by AI.
Sadly, we are riddled with a legacy constitutional system that no longer works for Indians. We happily inherited a system with colonial strictures full of bugs -- dangerous bugs -- that threaten the operating system as a whole -- and the worst part is that we swear by it. It is akin to Windows lover swearing by Windows Vista as the greatest operating system ever.
What we need is a fresh new operating system that works for us. In other words, a brand new constitution and governance system