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Home › Find an Advocate › Consumer Court in Delhi

Consumer court in Delhi — the one forum in the country built so that you can fight it yourself, which is exactly why people lose in it

Every other page on this site is about a place where you need somebody trained to stand up for you. This one is different, and we may as well say so at the top: the consumer commissions were designed so that an ordinary person could bring a grievance without engaging counsel, the procedure was deliberately kept simpler, and a great many complainants run their own matters and win. The trouble is what people conclude from that. “No lawyer needed” gets heard as “nothing to prepare”, and a complaint goes in with no proof of purchase, filed in the wrong tier, two years and one month after the thing went wrong. This page is the other half of the sentence.

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Do you need a lawyer to file a consumer case in India?No. The consumer commissions constituted under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 were built so that an ordinary person could bring a complaint personally, and a large proportion of complainants do. That is a real advantage and it is regularly wasted, because the things that actually decide these matters are done before anybody reaches a hearing: being a consumer rather than a commercial buyer, having documents that prove the transaction, filing within the two years Section 69 allows, and filing in the right tier and the right place. Where counsel genuinely earns their keep here is a short and specific list — large claims, product liability, medical and expert material, and an appeal, where the person ordered to pay must first deposit fifty per cent.

What this page covers

  1. A forum built for the person, not for the profession
  2. Are you a consumer? The question that ends most complaints
  3. Three tiers, and why no figure appears on this page
  4. You can now file where you live — the best change the 2019 Act made
  5. Two years, and how they disappear
  6. The notice, and the settlement that sometimes follows it
  7. What the commission can order — Section 39, in plain terms
  8. And what it is not for
  9. Building the complaint
  10. The whole case goes in on affidavit
  11. The documents that actually decide consumer matters
  12. “I do not have the bill”
  13. Defect in goods, deficiency in service — they are not the same complaint
  14. Medical matters, and why they are the hardest thing here
  15. A rejected insurance claim, and the two roads out of it
  16. A delayed flat — consumer commission or RERA?
  17. Online purchases: naming the right opposite party
  18. Travel, airlines and education — two categories people never think of
  19. Banking, telecom and utilities
  20. Filing online
  21. What the hearings are like
  22. When the other side does not appear — and when you do not
  23. Mediation — and the arithmetic nobody does
  24. The order, and reading it literally
  25. Winning is not getting
  26. The appeal, and the fifty per cent that protects you
  27. Further up, and the last stop
  28. When many people have the same grievance
  29. The regulator is not your refund
  30. Product liability — the serious end of the Act
  31. Unfair contract terms
  32. When you genuinely need an advocate here — the honest list
  33. Where Delhi’s consumer commissions sit
  34. Turning up on the day
  35. Free legal services, and why they matter differently here
  36. The folder that wins consumer cases
  37. How people lose cases they should win
  38. Have these ready before you draft a line
  39. What we actually do on a consumer file
  40. Things we turn down, and why we say it now
  41. Our fee, and where the State’s charges sit
  42. Questions people ask

A forum built for the person, not for the profession

Indian procedure is mostly not designed for the person it affects. The consumer commissions are the exception, and the exception was deliberate. The idea behind the original 1986 statute, carried forward into the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, was that a citizen with a grievance about a purchase should not have to hire anybody to be heard.

So the machinery is lighter. It is a quasi-judicial commission rather than a civil court. The case runs on affidavits and documents rather than on witnesses standing in a box. A complainant can present the matter personally, and enormous numbers do.

What goes wrong is the inference. People hear “you do not need a lawyer” and take it to mean the thing is informal, and that whoever is more obviously wronged will win. It is not informal. It is simply a proceeding where the preparation happens to be within an ordinary person’s reach — if they do it.

The whole page in four lines

First check you are a consumer and not a commercial buyer, because that objection kills more complaints than any other. Assemble proof of the transaction before you draft a word. File within two years, in the right tier, and now — usefully — where you live. And plan for enforcement, because an order is not money.

What is deliberately not repeated here, because it is set out properly elsewhere on this site: how a court decides which disputes it can hear at all (Saket), how anything is actually proved (Dwarka), the mechanics of a hearing morning (Tis Hazari), and when a matter goes up (Delhi High Court).

Which advocates actually work at the consumer commissions?Follow this and the list arrives already cut down to them. It is ordered A to Z, because nobody here is ranked and nobody has bought a place.
the consumer commissions advocates

Are you a consumer? The question that ends most complaints

Before anything else. A consumer, broadly, is a person who buys goods or hires or avails services for a consideration. The definition then carves out the person who obtained them for a commercial purpose — with an important exception for a person who uses them exclusively for the purpose of earning a livelihood by means of self-employment.

That commercial-purpose line is the single most common threshold objection taken by the other side, and it is taken in the written version almost as a reflex. It matters because it is decided on your own pleadings: if your complaint itself describes a purchase for a business, you have written the objection for them.

Usually withinUsually outside, or contested
A household appliance, phone, vehicle or insurance bought for personal or family useMachinery bought to run a factory or a fleet
A single machine used by a self-employed person to earn a living themselvesGoods bought for resale
A flat bought to live inUnits bought as an investment in volume
Medical, banking, telecom, transport and other services availed for considerationA service obtained free of charge, or under a contract of personal service

The right-hand column is not hopeless — the self-employment exception has real reach, and the line has been litigated a great deal. But it is the question to answer honestly first, and if you are anywhere near it, it is a reason to take advice rather than to file and hope.

Three tiers, and why no figure appears on this page

The structure is District Commission, State Commission, National Commission, and which one hears your complaint depends on the value involved.

This page prints no amounts, deliberately, and the reason is worth knowing. The figures written into the Act itself were subsequently revised by notification. That means a very large number of websites, articles and even printed guides now carry limits that are no longer the operative ones — and a person who relies on a stale figure files in the wrong forum and loses months. Section 34 fixes the District Commission’s jurisdiction, Section 47 the State Commission’s and Section 58 the National Commission’s; what the current thresholds are should be checked from the official source on the day you file. Including against this page.

One thing that does not change: filing in a higher tier than your claim warrants is not a way to be taken more seriously. It is a way to have the complaint returned.

You can now file where you live — the best change the 2019 Act made

For most ordinary complainants this is the single most useful provision in the statute, and hardly anybody knows about it.

Under the earlier regime a complainant generally had to go to where the opposite party carried on business. For an online purchase from a company registered in another state, that meant the grievance was worth less than the travel. Section 34 now includes, among the territorial grounds, the place where the complainant resides or personally works for gain.

Read that against what a consumer dispute typically is — a few thousand rupees, a person with a job, a company with a legal department in another city — and you can see what it changes. It makes small complaints worth bringing, which was the point.

It does not, of course, make every forum available. The grounds are what the section says they are, and the other side will take an objection if you stretch it. Note the address you actually reside or work at, and be able to show it.

Two years, and how they disappear

Section 69 provides that a complaint shall not be admitted unless it is filed within two years from the date on which the cause of action arose. The same section allows a complaint to be entertained after that period where the complainant satisfies the commission that there was sufficient cause for the delay, and the commission records its reasons in writing.

Two years reads as generous. Here is how it goes. Three months of calls to a helpline. Two months waiting for a promised callback. A visit to a branch. An escalation email. A reply saying the matter is being looked into. Six months of nothing. Another complaint through a website form. A year later somebody suggests consumer court, and now the argument is about when the cause of action arose rather than about the defective product.

The discipline that prevents this costs nothing: from the first complaint, keep a single dated list — what you asked, whom you asked, what they said, on what date. If you later need condonation, that list is the application. If you do not, it is still the chronology your complaint needs.

The notice, and the settlement that sometimes follows it

A written notice before filing is not a statutory precondition here, and you can file without one. It is still usually worth sending, for three reasons that have nothing to do with formality.

It dates the demand and, when they refuse or ignore it, dates the refusal. It converts a vague history of phone calls into a document. And it quite often works — a company that has absorbed fifty helpline complaints will sometimes settle when something arrives that looks like the start of a proceeding.

We draft legal notices and, where you are on the receiving end of one, the reply. Keep the dispatch proof. A notice you cannot prove was sent is a notice that was not sent.

Need this handled by somebody who knows the consumer commissions?The directory opens on that court alone. Reading a profile and messaging somebody through it both cost you nothing.
the consumer commissions advocates

What the commission can order — Section 39, in plain terms

Being precise about the relief available is not pedantry; it is how you draft a prayer that can actually be granted. Section 39 lists what a District Commission may direct, and it includes:

And what it is not for

It is not a criminal court. It does not punish anybody, it does not send anybody anywhere, and a complaint written in the register of moral outrage rather than of loss reads badly.

It is also not a place to obtain relief of a kind the statute does not provide, and a prayer for something outside Section 39 is simply not granted — often along with the rest of the complaint, because it signals that nobody checked. Ask for what the section allows, quantify it, and support the quantification. “Compensation for mental agony” is a real head of relief; a figure plucked from the air for it is what gets it reduced to a token.

Building the complaint

A consumer complaint is short by the standards of this site’s other pages, and that is not a reason to be casual about it. It needs: who you are and where you reside or work; who the opposite parties are, named correctly and completely; what you bought or availed, when, for how much, with the document that shows it; what went wrong and when; what you did about it and what they said; why the commission has jurisdiction over value, territory and time; and exactly what you want ordered.

The last two are the ones people skip. A complaint that never states why this commission can hear it invites the objection, and a complaint whose prayer is “justice be done” gives the commission nothing to order. We prepare consumer complaint drafting and the full consumer forum case paperwork; the facts have to come from you and the documents have to exist.

The whole case goes in on affidavit

This is the structural point that changes how you should prepare. Evidence in these proceedings goes in by affidavit, and nobody is generally produced for cross-examination in the way our Dwarka page describes for a civil trial.

Two consequences follow, and they pull in the same direction. Everything you want the commission to know has to be in the affidavit and its annexures — you do not get to add it later from the floor. And because nobody is being tested orally, the documents carry the whole weight. A contemporaneous email is worth more than a paragraph of indignation, every time.

Affidavits sworn before an oath commissioner are ordinary work and we do them; what is not ordinary, and what people get wrong, is deciding what belongs in one.

The documents that actually decide consumer matters

DocumentWhat it proves
Invoice, bill or order confirmationThat the transaction happened, for what, and for how much
Bank, card or UPI statement entryPayment — and this often survives when the bill does not
Warranty card, policy document, terms acceptedWhat was promised, which is the measure of the deficiency
Service job sheet, complaint number, ticket referenceThat you reported it, and when — the cause of action’s date
Emails and chat transcripts with the companyThe refusal, in their own words. The single most useful annexure
Photographs or video of the defect, datedThe condition of the goods, where the defect is visible
Courier or delivery recordDelivery, condition on delivery, and the date
The notice you sent and its dispatch proofThat a demand was made before filing

“I do not have the bill”

It is the commonest sentence in our first call on a consumer matter, and the honest answer is: you are not finished, but you are now doing it the hard way.

What has to be established is the transaction, and an invoice is only the most convenient way of doing it. A card statement entry with the merchant name, an order confirmation email, a warranty registration, a service record in the company’s own system, a delivery record — any of these, and better, several of these together, can do the work.

What does not work is asserting the purchase and annexing nothing. If you are missing the bill, the time to gather the substitutes is before drafting, not after the other side has denied the purchase in their written version.

Thinking about engaging counsel for a the consumer commissions matter?Open this and the filtering is done for you — only the advocates listed for this court, in alphabetical order, with no fee shown against anybody.
the consumer commissions advocates

Defect in goods, deficiency in service — they are not the same complaint

A defect relates to the quality, quantity, purity or standard of goods. A deficiency relates to the quality and manner of performance of a service against what is required by law or under a contract. Most real grievances are one or the other, and some are both, and saying which you are alleging changes what you have to prove.

A defective machine is proved by the condition of the machine. A deficient service is proved by the gap between what was promised and what was done — so the promise itself, in the policy, the terms, the brochure or the email, becomes the central document. Complainants who have a service grievance frequently annex everything about the loss and nothing about the promise, and the promise is the part that was needed.

This is the one subject on this page that needs a page of its own, and now has one. What separates negligence from a bad outcome, why the complete medical record is the first thing you obtain and why it must be obtained before you complain, how consent works as a separate ground, and what the criminal and medical council routes do that a commission cannot — all of that is in our medical negligence guide. Read the two together: that page deliberately does not repeat the procedure explained here.

Medical matters, and why they are the hardest thing here

Medical services rendered for consideration have long been dealt with by the consumer commissions, and these complaints are brought here every day. They are also the least like an ordinary consumer case, and treating them as one is how they fail.

Three reasons. The standard is not “the outcome was bad”; a poor result is not by itself negligence, and a complaint written as though it were does not survive. The material that decides it — the case sheet, the notes, the consent form, the discharge summary — is held by the other side, so getting the complete record is itself a step and should be started immediately. And the question of what a reasonably competent practitioner would have done is an expert question.

This is squarely in the category where counsel is needed. We prepare the medical negligence complaint documentation to their instructions, and the first practical thing to do, today, is to ask the hospital in writing for the complete records.

A rejected insurance claim, and the two roads out of it

Insurance is one of the largest categories of consumer complaint, and the grounds of rejection repeat: non-disclosure at the proposal stage, an exclusion in the policy, delay in intimation, a document not submitted, a treatment said not to be covered.

What matters is that there is more than one route. The insurance ombudsman is a separate mechanism with its own scope, its own limits and its own speed; a consumer commission is the other. Which suits you depends on the amount, the ground of rejection, and whether you want a quick resolution or a reasoned adjudication. Neither is automatically better, and the ombudsman route is set out on its own page here.

Whichever you choose, the file is the same: the policy with all its terms, the proposal form, the claim form, the repudiation letter with the reason stated in it, and the medical or loss documents. We handle the paperwork for a health insurance claim dispute and a life insurance claim rejection appeal.

A delayed flat — consumer commission or RERA?

This choice wastes more buyer-years than any other in the list, because both forums can be available and they do different things well.

The question that settles it is not which is faster but what you actually want. Possession of the flat, a refund with interest, or compensation for the delay while you keep the booking are three different objectives, and they are not equally served by the two routes. The stage the project has reached and its registration status matter too.

Start with a notice for delay, which dates your demand in either case, and read our RERA complaint page. Then put the forum question to counsel before filing, because this is one of those choices that is expensive to reverse.

Online purchases: naming the right opposite party

The 2019 Act was written with e-commerce squarely in view, and an online purchase is as much a consumer transaction as one over a counter. The difficulty is not whether you can complain. It is about whom.

Behind one order page there are frequently three or four distinct entities: the marketplace, the seller listed on it, the manufacturer or brand, and a logistics provider. Each of them, in a written version, will explain that the responsibility lies with one of the others.

So name carefully and name on material rather than on memory. Your order page and invoice usually identify the seller. The packaging and warranty identify the brand. Naming only the famous company because it is the one you have heard of is how a complainant ends up with an order against nobody useful.

Travel, airlines and education — two categories people never think of

Two very large groups of grievances sit unclaimed because people do not recognise them as consumer matters at all.

The first is travel. A cancelled or long-delayed flight, a downgraded booking, baggage lost or damaged, a tour package that bore no relation to what was sold, a hotel that was not the hotel in the photographs. These are services availed for consideration, and the measure of the deficiency is the same as anywhere else — the gap between the promise and the performance. Which makes the booking confirmation, the itinerary, the package brochure and the terms accepted at checkout the documents that matter, and the ones nobody keeps.

The second is education, and it is more contested. Complaints about coaching institutes, admission promises, fees not refunded on withdrawal and services a school or institute agreed to provide and did not are brought regularly. The position of a purely educational function of a statutory or examining body has been the subject of a good deal of litigation and is not the simple answer people assume, so this is a category to ask about rather than to assume. What is reliably useful either way is the paper: the prospectus, the fee receipt, the refund policy as it stood when you paid, and the written communication refusing you.

In both, the same discipline decides the outcome. Capture the promise at the time it is made — a screenshot of the package page, the brochure, the refund clause — because the version on the website six months later will be a different one.

Banking, telecom and utilities

Banking grievances are a large slice of the caseload, and they have their own ladder before the commission — the branch, the nodal officer, and the banking ombudsman scheme — set out on our banking complaint page. Using that ladder first is usually both faster and better evidence, because each stage produces a dated refusal.

Electricity and other utility services are availed for consideration and complaints about them are familiar here, though some statutes create their own forums that have to be reckoned with first.

Telecom is the one to check before you draft, because the position of telecom service disputes has been the subject of litigation and it is not the simple answer people assume. Do not file on an assumption in this category; ask.

Filing online

Filing has moved substantially to the government’s online consumer case portal, and that is the ordinary route now rather than an alternative. No walkthrough appears on this page: portals, their formats and their upload limits change, and a stale set of steps sends somebody in circles at eleven at night.

What does not change is the preparation. Clean, legible scans, each named so a human can tell what it is. An index in the order the complaint refers to them. One consistent spelling of your own name, address and phone number across every document, because mismatches invite questions that have nothing to do with your grievance. And translations of anything not in the language of the proceeding, prepared beforehand.

What the hearings are like

Shorter and plainer than people expect, and there are more of them than people expect. A matter moves through admission, notice to the opposite party, their written version, your rejoinder if needed, evidence by affidavit on both sides, written arguments, oral arguments, and order.

Each of those is a date. The complainant who attends every one of them, keeps a note of what happened and what is next, and files what was directed before the following date, is in a materially different position from the one who attends when convenient. The habit of checking the list and confirming the position the day before applies here exactly as it does anywhere else — our Tis Hazari page sets out that discipline.

ADVOCATES

Advocates on this directory who appear in the consumer commissions

Listed alphabetically. We do not rank, rate or feature advocates, and nobody pays for a position here — the reason is on our Find an Advocate page. Neither reading a profile nor writing to somebody through it costs anything.

See the full filter for this court ›

When the other side does not appear — and when you do not

If the opposite party, having been served, does not appear or does not file its version within the time allowed, the matter can proceed ex parte and be decided on your material alone.

That is less of a gift than it sounds. The commission still has to be satisfied on what you have filed, so a thin complaint remains a thin complaint and an unsupported figure remains unsupported. Companies also apply to set such orders aside, and an ex parte order obtained on weak material is the easiest kind to have reopened.

The mirror risk is the one that actually catches complainants. If you stop attending, the matter can be dismissed for default, and restoring it is an application, an explanation and months. Having come this far, attend.

Mediation — and the arithmetic nobody does

Chapter V of the Act provides for reference to mediation where it appears that there exist elements of a settlement acceptable to the parties, through consumer mediation cells attached to the commissions.

Now do the arithmetic that complainants skip, because in this forum it usually points one way. What you want is almost always a refund, a replacement or a repair. If that is available in two months through mediation, against an order in eighteen months followed by an execution proceeding to actually collect it, the mediated outcome is worth more even at a somewhat lower figure.

Two conditions. The settlement must be recorded properly, with the amount, the date, the mode and the account written into it — a vague promise to “resolve amicably” is the thing you will be chasing next year. And it should say what happens to the complaint.

The order, and reading it literally

When the order comes, read the operative part word for word rather than reading the summary somebody sends you. What exactly was directed, against which opposite party, in what amount, within what time, and with what consequence for non-compliance. Those five answers determine everything you do next.

Obtain a proper copy for your file — we get certified true copies — because you will need it both if they appeal and if they do not pay.

Winning is not getting

This is the part of consumer litigation that is least discussed and most often the reason a complainant ends up disillusioned after actually succeeding.

An order is a direction. It is not money in your account. Where the opposite party does not comply within the time given, the order has to be enforced, and that is a fresh proceeding which you have to initiate — we prepare execution petition papers, and the Act also provides consequences for non-compliance with a commission’s order.

Plan for it from the beginning. It affects whether a settlement offer at seventy per cent during mediation is a defeat or a good outcome, and the answer is more often the second than people admit while they are angry.

The appeal, and the fifty per cent that protects you

Section 41 provides an appeal to the State Commission against an order of the District Commission, within forty-five days, with power to entertain a late appeal on sufficient cause. And it contains the provision every successful complainant should know about:

The deposit

No appeal by a person who is required to pay an amount under the District Commission’s order is entertained by the State Commission unless that person has deposited fifty per cent of that amount.

Understand what that does for you. The cheapest tactic against a small complainant is to appeal and wait, in the hope they run out of energy. This provision puts a real price on that tactic, and it deters a good deal of it. It also means that if you lose and want to appeal, you need that money ready — which is a fact to know before, not after.

Further up, and the last stop

Section 51 provides for an appeal to the National Commission against an order of the State Commission, and Section 67 for an appeal to the Supreme Court against an order of the National Commission passed in complaints filed before it. The ladder is real, and it is long.

Which is why the unromantic question belongs at the start rather than at the end: what is this claim worth, and how far up am I realistically willing to go? A grievance that is right and small is often better settled than litigated to the top, and there is nothing shameful in that arithmetic. When the matter does go up, the appellate papers are ordinary work for us — appeal drafting and the applications that go with it — and the argument is counsel’s.

When many people have the same grievance

A builder who delayed two hundred flats, an institute that refused refunds to a whole batch, a finance company that levied the same wrongful charge on thousands of accounts — in these, each person filing separately is both exhausting and weaker than it needs to be.

Section 35 provides for who may make a complaint, and it includes one or more consumers where there are numerous consumers having the same interest, as well as a recognised consumer association, whether or not the consumer concerned is a member of it. Those two routes exist precisely for this situation and they are badly under-used.

The practical advantages are real. The cost of preparing the case is shared. The documents held by one complainant fill the gaps in another’s file. A pattern across many buyers is far harder for the other side to explain away than one person’s bad experience. And a group is less likely to quietly give up, which is what the other side is usually counting on.

The requirements are specific and getting them wrong is expensive, so this is a situation to take to counsel at the outset rather than after the individual complaints have already been filed separately.

The regulator is not your refund

The Act established a Central Consumer Protection Authority to regulate matters relating to the violation of consumer rights, unfair trade practices and false or misleading advertisements, where those affect the public and consumers as a class. It can investigate, direct recalls, order the discontinuation of misleading advertising, and impose penalties.

What it does not do is pay you. It is a regulator acting for consumers generally, not a forum for your individual compensation, and a person who complains only there and waits has not started the proceeding that gets their money back.

Both can exist at the same time and there is nothing wrong with doing both. Just be clear which one is your case.

Product liability — the serious end of the Act

Chapter VI created a statutory product liability action, allowing a claim against a product manufacturer, a product service provider or a product seller for harm caused by a defective product, on the grounds the chapter sets out.

The distinction from an ordinary complaint is worth being precise about, because it changes the case entirely. An ordinary deficiency complaint is about a bad purchase — you want the money back. A product liability action is about harm — injury, damage to other property, loss caused by the product doing something it should not have done.

These are technical, they are defended seriously, and they are not a first attempt at self-representation. If your facts are in this territory, take advice before anything is drafted.

Unfair contract terms

The 2019 Act brought in the concept of an unfair contract — a contract between a manufacturer or trader or service provider and a consumer containing terms that cause a significant change in the rights of the consumer, of the kinds the Act describes.

It matters because of what companies rely on. A great many refusals rest on a clause buried in terms nobody reads, and the assumption on both sides is that a signed term is the end of the discussion. It is not necessarily the end of the discussion any more. If your claim was refused on the strength of a clause, annex the clause and say why it is unfair rather than ignoring it and hoping it is not raised.

When you genuinely need an advocate here — the honest list

This page began by saying you can do this yourself, and that remains true for the ordinary refund, replacement and deficiency matter. Here is the other side of it, stated as plainly.

SituationWhy
A large claimThe other side will defend it properly, and the cost of losing on a technical point now exceeds the fee
Medical negligenceExpert material, records held by the other side, and a standard that is not “bad outcome”
Product liabilityA statutory action with its own grounds, defended seriously
The forum itself is in doubtConsumer commission, RERA, ombudsman, civil court — choosing wrongly can close a door
The other side has appealedThe proceeding is now appellate and the papers are different
A threshold objection is taken — commercial purpose, limitation, jurisdictionThese are argued on law, and they end cases before the merits
Several entities are involved and nobody accepts responsibilityGetting the array of parties right is a legal judgement

If you are not in that table, prepare well and go and do it. We would rather tell you that than sell you something you do not need.

Where Delhi’s consumer commissions sit

District Commissions sit district-wise across Delhi, with the State Commission and the National Commission also in the city. Which District Commission your matter goes to follows from the jurisdiction rules rather than from what is nearest to you.

No addresses appear here. These offices are relocated from time to time, and a stale address on a web page is exactly the sort of thing that makes somebody miss a date. Confirm from the current official source, and confirm again before a hearing after any gap.

Turning up on the day

Allow more time than the journey needs, because security screening and finding the right room are separate from travelling. Carry government photo identity. Carry your own complete set of papers even when everything has been filed online, because being able to turn to a document while standing there is worth a great deal.

And carry a pen and a plain notebook. What was said, what was directed and what the next date is — written down at the time, not reconstructed in the evening.

Free legal services, and why they matter differently here

The Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 sets out who is entitled to free legal services, income is no bar for a woman, and the helplines are 1516 within Delhi and 15100 nationally.

The reason it reads differently on this page is that the commissions were designed to be usable without representation in the first place, so the barrier for an ordinary complainant is lower to begin with. Where legal aid earns its place here is precisely the list in the section above — a large or technical matter where a person who cannot pay would otherwise be outgunned. Ask; being told you do not qualify costs nothing.

The folder that wins consumer cases

Almost every consumer matter is won or lost by whether somebody kept things, and most people start keeping things far too late.

From the first time something goes wrong: the bill and the payment record, the warranty or policy, every complaint number with its date, every email and chat in full rather than as a screenshot of one line, the dated photographs, the notice and its dispatch proof, and a single running sheet at the front — date, what happened, what was said, what is next. Scan as you go. That folder is your complaint, your affidavit and, if it comes to it, your condonation application.

How people lose cases they should win

What people doWhat it produces
Describe a business purchase in their own complaintThe commercial-purpose objection, written for the other side
Spend eighteen months on helplines and escalationsAn argument about limitation instead of about the defect
File with no document proving the transactionA denial in the written version that cannot be answered
Rely on a pecuniary limit read on a websiteA complaint filed in the wrong tier
Name only the well-known companyAn order against an entity that did not sell them anything
Write outrage instead of lossA prayer that cannot be granted, in a forum that awards what the statute lists
Annex the loss but not the promiseA deficiency case with nothing to measure the deficiency against
Screenshot one line of a chatContext the other side supplies instead, in their favour
Refuse mediation on principleTwo extra years for an outcome that was available in two months
Stop attending once the case “is filed”Dismissal for default, and a restoration application
Treat the order as the endA win on paper and nothing in the account
Complain only to the regulatorNo proceeding running that can order anybody to pay them

Have these ready before you draft a line

Proof of the transaction, in whatever forms exist. The document containing the promise — policy, warranty, terms, brochure, order page. Every complaint reference with its date. The full correspondence, not extracts. Dated photographs where the defect is visible. Your identity and address proof, and proof of the address you say you reside or work at, because that is now a jurisdictional fact. The notice and its dispatch proof.

And two habits worth more than they look. One spelling of your name everywhere. And translations arranged in advance for anything not in the language of the proceeding, rather than produced untranslated on a hearing date.

What we actually do on a consumer file

Plainly: documentation and filing support. Nobody here is an advocate and nobody appears before any commission. On a consumer matter our half is the notice where one is to be sent, the complaint drafted and the full case papers assembled, the affidavits and their swearing, the annexures indexed and paginated, translations, the lodging, and the certified copies when orders come.

What is argued, and whether it should be argued at all, belongs to counsel if you engage one. Court work is for your advocate, whose fee is engaged and paid by you directly; we do not quote, collect or share it. And in this forum more than any other, the honest answer is often that you do not need one — the directory is there, free to search and free to write through, for the matters where you do.

Things we turn down, and why we say it now

  • A complaint asserting a purchase, a defect or a promise that we have been told is not true. Not in any form, and no backdating of anything.
  • Inflating a compensation figure to make a claim look bigger. It gets reduced, and it damages the parts of the complaint that were sound.
  • Describing a commercial purchase as a personal one to get past the threshold. That is the objection that ends cases, and inviting it dishonestly is worse than losing honestly.
  • Telling you which forum to choose between a commission, RERA, an ombudsman and a court. That decides your case and it is legal advice.
  • Any suggestion that an order or a listing can be arranged. The conversation ends there.
  • Ranking advocates or naming a best one — the directory runs A to Z.
  • Publishing, receiving or sharing what any advocate charges.
  • Keeping your originals. They stay with you.

Our fee, and where the State’s charges sit

Every document carries its own figure, and that figure is on the document’s own service page where you can read it before ordering anything. Whatever the commission itself charges for filing is shown separately from our figure, because that money is paid to the commission and does not come to us.

The total is told to you before work starts and nothing is payable in advance. On a small consumer matter, if the honest position is that the paperwork is simple enough for you to do yourself once somebody has told you what goes in it, that is what you will be told on the call.

Sources and a caution

  • The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 — which replaced the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.
  • Section 34 — jurisdiction of the District Commission, including territorial jurisdiction where the complainant resides or personally works for gain; Section 47 — State Commission; Section 58 — National Commission.
  • Section 35 — the manner in which a complaint may be made and by whom; Section 38 — procedure on admission of a complaint.
  • Section 39 — the reliefs a District Commission may order, including removal of the defect, replacement, return of the price, compensation, discontinuance of an unfair trade practice, corrective advertisement and costs.
  • Section 41 — appeal to the State Commission within forty-five days, and the requirement that a person required to pay an amount deposit fifty per cent of it before the appeal is entertained; Section 51 — appeal to the National Commission; Section 67 — appeal to the Supreme Court.
  • Section 69 — limitation of two years from the date on which the cause of action arose, with power to condone on sufficient cause recorded in writing.
  • Chapter V (mediation) and Chapter VI (product liability) of the Act.
  • The Central Consumer Protection Authority under the Act — a regulator for matters affecting consumers as a class, not a route to individual compensation.
  • The Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 — entitlement to free legal services. Delhi income limits and helpline numbers are published by the Delhi State Legal Services Authority and are revised.
  • Bar Council of India Rules, Part VI Chapter II, Rule 36 — why nothing on this site ranks, rates or prices an advocate.
  • Deliberately not stated here: any pecuniary limit. The amounts written into the Act were later revised by notification, which is precisely why so many published guides are now wrong about them. Check the current thresholds from the official source before filing, and do not rely on this page for them either. Also not stated: filing-fee slabs, commission addresses, and the steps of the online filing portal, all of which change.
  • This page is general information about how the consumer commissions work. It is not advice about any matter. Which forum your grievance belongs in, and whether your facts amount to a defect, a deficiency or a product liability claim, are legal questions on your facts.
FAQ

Consumer court — questions people ask

Do I need a lawyer to file a consumer case?
No, and that is not a loophole — it is the design. The consumer commissions were built so that an ordinary person could bring a complaint without engaging counsel, the procedure is deliberately simpler than a civil court’s, and a great many complainants argue their own matters. Whether you should is a separate question that depends on the size and complexity of your claim, and this page sets out honestly where the line falls.
Is a consumer commission actually a court?
It is a quasi-judicial body constituted under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, not a civil court, and the difference shows in the procedure: matters run largely on affidavits and documents rather than on oral evidence, and the rules are applied with a view to deciding the grievance rather than to enforcing technicality. Its orders are still binding and enforceable, which is what people underestimate about it.
Who counts as a consumer?
Broadly, a person who buys goods or hires services for consideration — and, importantly, not a person who obtained them for a commercial purpose, though there is an exception for a person using them exclusively for earning a livelihood by self-employment. That commercial-purpose line is the single commonest ground on which a complaint is thrown out at the threshold, and it is the first thing to be honest with yourself about.
Which commission do I file in?
There are three tiers — District, State and National — and which one you go to depends on the value involved. This page prints no figures deliberately: the amounts stated in the Act itself have since been revised by notification, and a stale number would send you to the wrong forum. Check the current limits before filing and do not rely on any website, including this one.
Can I file where I live, or only where the company is?
This is the best thing the 2019 Act did for ordinary complainants. Section 34 fixes the District Commission’s jurisdiction, and the territorial rules now include the place where the complainant resides or personally works for gain. Before that, people had to travel to wherever the company chose to be based. If you bought online from a company registered in another state, this provision is why you may not have to go there.
How long do I have to file?
Section 69 of the Act provides that a complaint shall not be admitted unless it is filed within two years from the date on which the cause of action arose. Delay can be condoned where sufficient cause is shown and the commission records its reasons in writing, but that is an application you have to make and support, not something that happens automatically. Two years sounds generous and disappears quickly while you are exchanging emails with a call centre.
Do I have to send a legal notice first?
It is not a statutory precondition in the way it is in some other proceedings, but it is almost always worth doing. A notice creates a dated record of what you asked for and what they refused, it sometimes produces a settlement without any filing at all, and its absence makes the story harder to tell. We draft legal notices, and the reply, if one comes, becomes an annexure.
What can the commission actually order?
Section 39 lists the reliefs: removing the defect, replacing the goods, returning the price, paying compensation for loss or injury including in appropriate cases punitive damages, discontinuing an unfair or restrictive trade practice, withdrawing hazardous goods from sale, and costs. Notice what is not there — it is not a criminal court, it does not punish anybody, and it does not exist to make an example of a company that annoyed you.
I do not have the bill. Is my case finished?
Not necessarily, but you are now proving your case the hard way. What matters is establishing the transaction: a bank or card statement showing the payment, an order confirmation or delivery email, a warranty card, a service job sheet, a chat transcript, a courier record. Assemble everything of that kind before you draft. A complaint that asserts a purchase with nothing to show for it is the easiest one in the list to dismiss.
How does the case actually run?
Largely on paper. The complaint goes in with its documents, the opposite party is given notice and files a written version, evidence goes in by affidavit, written arguments are filed, and there is oral argument. Nobody is generally produced for cross-examination the way they are in a civil trial. That is why the quality of the documents you attach, and not the force of anything you say, decides most consumer matters.
What if the company simply does not turn up?
The matter can proceed ex parte and an order can be passed in your absence of the other side. Do not treat that as a free win: the commission still has to be satisfied on your own material, so a thin complaint stays thin. The other risk is the reverse — if you stop attending, the matter can be dismissed, and getting it restored is far more work than attending was.
Can I file online?
Yes. Filing has moved substantially online through the government’s consumer case filing portal, and it is the ordinary route now. This page does not set out the steps, because portals and their requirements change and a stale walkthrough is worse than none. What does not change is what you need ready: clean scans, a document index, and one consistent spelling of your own name across everything.
Is mediation worth trying?
Often, yes. Chapter V of the Act provides for reference to mediation where there is a possibility of settlement acceptable to both sides. In a consumer matter what you usually want is the refund, the replacement or the repair — and if that is available in three months through mediation rather than in two years through an order and then an execution, the arithmetic is not close. Insist on it being recorded properly.
I won, and they are not paying. Now what?
An order is not money, and this is the part nobody tells complainants about. The order has to be enforced, and that is a separate proceeding you have to initiate — we prepare execution petition papers. Budget for this from the start rather than discovering it after you have already celebrated.
They have appealed. What does that mean for me?
Section 41 allows an appeal to the State Commission against a District Commission order within forty-five days — and, crucially for you, a person required to pay under the order cannot have the appeal entertained unless fifty per cent of that amount is deposited. That deposit requirement is real leverage and it deters a good many purely tactical appeals. Further appeals run to the National Commission under Section 51 and from there to the Supreme Court under Section 67.
Is medical negligence a consumer matter?
Medical services rendered for consideration have long been treated as services for these purposes, and such complaints are brought before the consumer commissions. They are also among the hardest cases in the system, because they turn on expert material and on records held by the other side. This is firmly in the category where you want counsel — we prepare the medical negligence complaint documentation to their instructions.
My insurance claim was rejected. Is this the right place?
It is one of the right places, and there is more than one route — the insurance ombudsman is a separate mechanism with its own scope and its own limits. Which is better depends on the amount, the ground of rejection and what you want. We handle the documentation for a health insurance claim dispute and a life insurance claim rejection appeal, and the ombudsman route is set out on its own page.
My flat is delayed. Consumer commission or RERA?
Both can be available and they are not the same thing, which is why so many buyers waste a year in the wrong one. The choice turns on what you actually want — possession, a refund with interest, or compensation — and on the stage the project has reached. Start with our RERA complaint page and a notice for delay, and take the forum question to counsel before filing anything.
Does this cover online shopping and marketplaces?
Yes, and the 2019 Act was written with e-commerce in mind. The practical difficulty is naming the right opposite party: the seller, the marketplace and the manufacturer are frequently different entities and each will point at the others. Name carefully, on the material you actually have — order page, invoice, packaging, warranty — rather than naming only the famous one.
What is the Central Consumer Protection Authority? Will it get me my money?
No, and this confusion costs people months. The Authority established under the Act deals with matters affecting consumers as a class — unfair trade practices, misleading advertisements, product recalls — and it is a regulator, not a route to your individual compensation. For your refund you still have to go to a commission. Both can exist at once; only one of them pays you.
What is product liability?
Chapter VI of the Act created a statutory product liability action against a manufacturer, a product service provider or a product seller for harm caused by a defective product. It is a genuinely significant addition and it is more technical than an ordinary deficiency complaint. If your grievance involves injury or damage caused by a product rather than merely a bad purchase, get advice before drafting.
When do I actually need an advocate for this?
When the amount is large, when the other side has engaged senior counsel, when the case involves expert or medical material, when it is a product liability action, when the other side has appealed, or when the same facts could go to more than one forum and choosing wrongly closes a door. Small refund and deficiency matters, honestly, you can run yourself — and we would rather say that than sell you something.
Where do Delhi’s consumer commissions sit?
The District Commissions sit district-wise across Delhi, with the State Commission and the National Commission also in the city. Which District Commission your matter goes to follows from the jurisdiction rules rather than from convenience, and the address should be confirmed from the current official source on the day rather than from a web page, because these are relocated from time to time.
Can Legal Space Services appear for me at a hearing?
No. We are a documentation and filing business, not a law firm, and nobody here represents anybody. What we do is prepare the papers — the complaint, the affidavits, the index, the annexures, the translations. Court work is for your advocate, whose fee is engaged and paid by you directly; we do not quote, collect or share it. In this particular forum, a great many people do appear for themselves.
What does your own work cost?
Each document has its own figure, printed on that document’s service page before you order anything. Filing fee and any charge levied by the commission is named separately because it goes to them and not to us. We tell you the total before we start and nothing is payable in advance.

Tell us what went wrong, and we will tell you whether you even need us.

Send the bill, the correspondence and the refusal. We will tell you whether the facts look like a consumer complaint, what the file is missing, and what a complete set of papers would contain — and if it is small enough that you can do it yourself once you know what goes in it, we will say so. The advocate directory is there for the matters that are not, free to search, and no commission from anybody on it reaches us.

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