Consumer Complaint Against Heads Up For Tails: How To File

One of my clients recently had a case which I am explaining below and if you are stuck in such similar situation, here is what to do.

Note: Due to attorney-client privilege, I cannot disclose complete case details or identify the actual parties involved. However, I am sharing the essential facts and legal approach so that if you find yourself in a similar situation, you can understand the available solutions and legal remedies.

TL;DR: Yes, you can file a consumer

TL;DR: Yes, you can file a consumer complaint under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, and you are allowed to do it yourself. It can be filed online, the fee is small or nil in many States, and the outer limit is two years from the day the problem arose. Miss that window and you have to separately persuade the Commission to condone the delay.

Key facts at a glance

• The law: Consumer Protection Act, 2019, plus the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 where the purchase was made online.
• Who may file: the consumer, a registered consumer association, a Central or State authority, and the legal heir or representative of a consumer who has died.
• Time limit: two years from the cause of action, with a separate condonation application if you are late.
• Forum by value: District Commission up to ₹50 lakh; State Commission from ₹50 lakh to ₹2 crore; National Commission above ₹2 crore. These figures were revised by the 2021 jurisdiction rules.
• Fee: fixed by each State's own rules and usually modest at the lower end. Check your State's schedule.
• Lawyer: optional. A consumer may appear in person or through an authorised representative.
• First appeal: to the State Commission, ordinarily within 45 days of the order.

What counts as a "consumer" — and who gets left out

The gate is Section 2(7). If you bought goods or hired a service for consideration, and the problem is a defect in the goods (Section 2(21)) or a deficiency in the service (Section 2(11)), you are usually covered. So is a beneficiary of the service, not just the person who paid.

The exclusion that troubles most people is commercial purpose. Goods bought for resale, or for a business activity, will normally put you outside the definition. There is a carve-out where goods are bought and used exclusively to earn a livelihood by means of self-employment, and that carve-out is narrow. A tailor buying a machine to stitch clothes for customers is probably covered; someone buying the same machine to supply a factory is not. The line between earning a livelihood and carrying on a business is drawn on facts, and it is drawn against the consumer more often than people expect.

Two other grounds worth knowing

You do not always need a defect or a deficiency. The Act separately covers unfair trade practices — misleading advertisements, false claims about a product, refusing to honour a warranty — and restrictive trade practices. If your grievance is that a company lied, that is a different door into the same forum, and it is often an easier one to walk through.

What usually falls outside

• Commercial purchases. Stock bought for resale, equipment bought for a business.
• Services obtained free of charge. The Act speaks of goods and services availed for consideration. Free is a hard word to get around, though it has been argued on the facts of particular schemes.
• Pure contractual disputes between two businesses. That is civil court territory.
• A grievance with no measurable loss. You may still have a case on an unfair trade practice, but you should know that the compensation will be modest.

How do I file a consumer complaint online in India?

The central filing platform is e-Daakhil, run by the National Commission. It covers the District, State and National Commissions, and it is the same portal whether the opposite party is a neighbourhood shop or an e-commerce platform.

The sequence is straightforward:

• Register with a mobile number and email. You will get an OTP. Do this before you start drafting, because the login expires and people lose half-written complaints.
• Pick the right Commission — the one with territorial and pecuniary jurisdiction. Getting this wrong is the most common reason a complaint comes back.
• Fill in the complaint: your details, the opposite party's full registered address (not the shop's, if it is a company), the facts in date order, and the relief you want.
• Upload the documents: invoice or receipt, the order confirmation, warranty card, photographs, and every email, WhatsApp message or chat transcript in which you complained. Not a summary of them. The actual messages.
• Pay the fee online. The schedule is prescribed under the rules and revised from time to time. At the lower end it is nil or a few hundred rupees. Check the figure on the portal on the day you pay rather than relying on a number from an article.
• Note the case number the portal generates. That number is your reference for everything that follows.

Once filed, the Commission scrutinises the complaint. If it is in order, it admits it and issues notice to the opposite party along with a copy of your complaint. The opposite party then files its response — ordinarily within thirty days, with a possible extension of another fifteen. If they do not file within that window, the Commission can proceed without their reply.

You can appear yourself. You can also appear through an authorised representative. A lawyer is permitted, not compulsory, and no Commission will insist on one.

Papers people forget and then lose on

• The invoice in your own name. A bill made out to your cousin, when you are the complainant, invites a pointless argument.
• Proof of payment that matches the invoice — UPI reference, card statement, bank entry.
• The first complaint you made to the seller. Date it. If you never complained in writing before filing, say so rather than constructing a trail later.
• The warranty or guarantee terms, and the service centre's job sheet if the item went in for repair.

Which Commission will hear it?

Two questions decide this. How much is at stake, and where can the complaint be filed.

Value decides the tier. Up to ₹50 lakh goes to the District Commission, ₹50 lakh to ₹2 crore to the State Commission, and anything above ₹2 crore to the National Commission. Those figures were revised upward in 2021, so older material on the internet is wrong.

Place is now easier than it used to be. Under the 2019 Act, you can file where the opposite party resides or works, or where the cause of action arose, or where you reside or personally work for gain. That last ground was a deliberate change from the 1986 Act, and it means a buyer in one State can ordinarily sue an online seller in another without travelling.

If you file in the wrong Commission, expect to be sent back. It costs you months.

The two-year clock, and what to do if it has run

A complaint must be filed within two years from the date the cause of action arose. That is a statutory bar — the Commission shall not admit a late complaint unless you separately apply for condonation of delay and give reasons the Commission accepts.

What counts as the date the cause of action arose is not always obvious. For a defective product, it is usually delivery or discovery of the defect. For a service deficiency, it is the date the service failed or the refusal to make it good. Where a builder has delayed possession, the clock has been argued about in a great many cases and the answer turns on the promise and the breach. This is genuinely fact-dependent, and I would not give a confident answer on a two-year point without seeing the papers.

If you are late: file the complaint anyway, with a separate application for condonation supported by an affidavit setting out the reason. Illness, a pending attempt at settlement with the company, a service centre sitting on your product for months — these have been accepted in some cases and rejected in others. There is no guarantee. The Commission has discretion, and it exercises it.

What you can realistically ask for

• Replacement of the goods, or refund of the price paid.
• Removal of the defect and the cost of doing it.
• Compensation for the loss or injury you actually suffered, and compensation for mental agony and harassment where the conduct warrants it.
• Interest on the amount.
• Costs of the litigation.
• An order directing the trader to stop the unfair trade practice.

Keep the claim proportionate to your documents. A Commission that is shown inflated numbers, unsupported by invoices, trusts the rest of the complaint less.

What the Commission will not do for you

It is not a criminal court. It cannot send anyone to jail, and it cannot register an FIR. It will not ordinarily decide complicated questions of title to property. It will not entertain a commercial buyer. And it will not fill gaps in your evidence — if the only proof of the defect is what you say in the complaint, the case tends to end there.

How long it actually takes

The statute sets target timelines — the District Commission is expected to dispose of a complaint within three months where no testing of the goods is required, and five months where it is. Contested matters with adjournments run well past that. You should go in expecting months, not weeks, and you should weigh that against the amount in dispute. A ₹4,000 phone is not worth two years of your attention unless the point matters to you beyond the money.

Mediation, and appeals if the order goes against you

The Act contains a mediation mechanism. With the parties' consent, the Commission can refer a matter to mediation at the start or at a later stage. A settlement reached there is recorded and is binding, and it is not appealable — which is the trade-off for getting a quick answer.

If you lose at first instance, an appeal lies to the State Commission, ordinarily within forty-five days of the order, with the delay condonable. The appeal carries a condition of depositing a part of the amount awarded, so read the provision for yourself before you file; the deposit is what stops most appeals before they start. The other side has the same right of appeal against an order in your favour, and they do use it.

When there may be nothing here to argue

I would rather say this than take a fee and file. If the two-year window is gone and you have no reason the Commission is likely to accept, the complaint will be dismissed. If the purchase was for resale or for your business, the District Commission will return it and you will have spent months reaching the same conclusion as a five-minute read of the definition. If there is no invoice, no payment record and no written complaint, you are asking the Commission to believe you against a company with better paperwork. And if the grievance is about how you were treated rather than about the goods or the service you paid for, the Act may simply not have anything for you — a separate and harder problem.

Frequently Asked Questions

What to send if you want this looked at

Do not write a long email. Send three things to me@sudhirrao.com or through /contact-us: the order or invoice with its date visible, a two-line note saying what went wrong and when you first complained to the seller, and the date on which you last dealt with them. If there is a limitation problem, say so at the top rather than at the end — that is the first thing I will check, and it decides whether anything else is worth reading. If the two years have run and there is no reason for the delay, I will tell you that plainly.

You can also call the chamber on +91 97295 06771, or write or visit in person at Lawyers' Chamber, Chamber No. 86, Supreme Court of India, New Delhi 110001. For matrimonial or family matters, my associate Adv. Jyoti Rao handles those files at the same chamber address.

Advocate Sudhir Rao, Supreme Court of India