West Bengal ranked 5th in consumer justice ranking among large states: Consumer Justice Report 2026
19 March, Kolkata: A first-of-its-kind study, the Consumer Justice Report 2026: Assessing Capacity of Redressal Commissions in India, by the India Justice Report (IJR) released today, ranks West Bengal 5th among the 19 large and mid-sized states (with populations of over one crore each). Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Karnataka are the top four states, while Telangana and Jharkhand are placed at the bottom.
Some encouraging trends[1]:
● The State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (SCDRC) had filled the president’s position for all years (2021-2025)
● 34 of the 35 SCDRC staff vacancies had been filled (2025)
● As of 2025, all 23 districts had District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (DCDRCs)
Where improvements can be made:
● As of 2025, half of the 10 SCDRC member positions were vacant
● As of 2024, there were only one women of the six member positions in the SCDRC
● 13% of cases were pending in state and district commissions (2020-2024)
● There were no president or member vacancies in any of the Kolkata’s DCDRCs (2021- 2025)
Among the nine small states (with populations less than one crore each), Meghalaya ranked first, while Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh were placed at the bottom.
The study, which draws primarily on public data obtained through Right to Information (RTI) and parliamentary responses, examines the capacity of consumer commissions on their capacity to fulfill the statutory obligations under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. It ranks states based on a combination of 11 indicators in five themes including budgets, infrastructure, human resources, workload, and gender diversity.
Consumer Commissions Jurisdictions
Based on the 2021 rules[2], each tier has a pecuniary jurisdiction to entertain complaints of a specified monetary value.
● DCDRCs – jurisdiction to entertain complaints where value of the goods or services paid as consideration does not exceed 50 lakh rupees.
● SCDRCs – jurisdiction to entertain complaints where value of the goods or services paid as consideration exceeds 50 lakh rupees but does not exceed 2 crore rupees.
● National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission (NCDRC) – jurisdiction to entertain complaints where value of the goods or services paid as consideration exceeds 2 crore rupees.
Analysis of DCDRCs in Kolkata
The study analysed RTI responses on vacancy, caseload, gender diversity, and budget of DCDRCs in five metro cities including the four DCDRCs in the state capital of Kolkata
- 109% of the Rs 7.9 crore budget allocation for the four DCRDCs utilised between 2021-22 to 2024-25
- There were no president or member vacancies in three DCRDCs—Kolkata Unit-IV, North Kolkata Unit-I, South Kolkata Unit-III, between 2021 and 2025
- All four Kolkata district commissions met the mandate for women’s representation of having a woman as president or a member in the commission
- Nearly two in three filed cases (5,173) from 2022 to 2024 were cleared
Sectoral Analysis of Consumer Cases
IJR’s analysis of cases filed and disposed between 2010 and 2024 (15 years) as available on the official portal Confonet[3] (now e-jagriti) by IJR reveals that.
- 87% of the 35,200 filed with West Bengal’s SCDRC during the 15-year period had been disposed
- More than half the cases filed in the SCDRC were in the housing sector followed by insurance (13%)
- On average, it took 461 days to dispose of a case. 54% of cases were cleared within one to five hearings.
IJR’s consumer dashboard can be accessed here: https://ccdash.indiajusticereport.org/
Staff in SCDRC
Between 2021 and 2025, West Bengal’s SCDRC sanctioned member strength increased from six to 10. But in 2025, only five positions had been filled. During this period, the staff vacancy fluctuated from zero vacancies in 2021 to 3% in 2025. In 2023, the state commission had appointed more staff than the sanctioned positions. The SCDRC had filled the president’s position for all years.
Gender Diversity
The CPA, 2019 mandates that among the members (and/or president) there be at least one woman. Between 2021 to 2025, the share of women in member and president posts in West Bengal’s SCDRC increased from 29% to 50%. However, briefly in 2024, it fell to 14%. Only a quarter of the 35 staff members were women in 2024. Three years earlier, in 2021, 29% of the staff were women.
The ranking of states is below:
| 19 Large and mid-sized states: | 9 Small states: | |||
| State | Consumer Justice Rank | State | Consumer Justice Rank | |
| Andhra Pradesh | 1 | Meghalaya | 1 | |
| Madhya Pradesh | 2 | Sikkim | 2 | |
| Rajasthan | 3 | Himachal Pradesh | 3 | |
| Karnataka | 4 | Goa | 4 | |
| West Bengal | 5 | Nagaland | 5 | |
| Haryana | 6 | Mizoram | 6 | |
| Tamil Nadu | 7 | Tripura | 7 | |
| Assam | 8 | Arunachal Pradesh | 8 | |
| Uttarakhand | 9 | Manipur | 9 | |
| Uttar Pradesh | 10 | |||
| Maharashtra | 11 | |||
| Kerala | 12 | |||
| Bihar | 13 | |||
| Gujarat | 14 | |||
| Punjab | 15 | |||
| Odisha | 16 | |||
| Chhattisgarh | 17 | |||
| Jharkhand | 18 | |||
| Telangana | 19 | |||
Justice (Retd.) Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Former Judge, Supreme Court of India released the report and said, “the will of the Parliament is reflected in a legislation but if the legislation is made non-functional then will is also defeated. The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 was expected to improve consumer protection capacity in the country. But it is concerning to find that more than half the president and member positions in state commissions are vacant and not all districts have formed district commissions. This has persisted despite multiple court orders including during my tenure when we had taken suo motu cognisance of capacity gaps. These significant gaps affect the consumer protection institutional structure and the access to speedy and effective redressal. Furthermore, it erodes the confidence of consumers in grievance redressal in the consumer commissions”.
Justice (retd.) Madan B Lokur said, “the Consumer Protection Act is a beneficent legislation at the centre of which is the ordinary consumer. The report clearly shows that the system is working at subsistence level, with vacancies as high as 40% in State Commissions. One in three cases is pending over three years. It is time the authorities realise that consumption and economic growth is severely affected by the lack of faith in consumer redressal mechanisms. Forty years after the Consumer Protection legislation Act was enacted the situation is terribly grim. It raises the question: Are these commissions really grievance redressal bodies? “
Maja Daruwala, Editor, India Justice Report, said, “The 2019 consumer protection law is designed to respond to the complexities of the changing marketplace in India and globally. While there are improvements and innovations compared to the previous statute, even the most progressive legislation relies on robust institutional mechanisms. Data accessed through RTI show the gaps and neglect in filling leadership vacancies in commissions which undermines the spirit of the consumer protection mandate and leads to ineffective grievance redressal. We find that in consumer commissions gender diversity is restricted to mere compliance, pendency persists, and mediation is ornamental, eventually weakening the promise of institutional resolution and redress for consumers.”
About the India Justice Report:
The India Justice Report (IJR) is a quantitative index that uses the government’s own statistics to rank the capacity of the formal justice system operating in various states. The IJR is a collaborative effort undertaken by DAKSH, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Common Cause, Centre for Social Justice, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and TISS-Prayas.
First published in 2019, each biennial report tracks improvements and persisting deficits in each state’s structural and financial capacity to deliver justice based on quantitative measurements of budgets, human resources, infrastructure, workload, and diversity across police, judiciary, prisons, legal aid and Human Rights Commissions for all 36 states and UTs.
Annexure I: Consumer Justice Ranking Indicators
| S.No | Ranked indicator | Commission measured | Source | Time period |
| 1 | President vacancy | State Commissions | Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 5127, answered on 02.04.2025. | 2025 |
| 2 | Member vacancy | State Commissions | Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 5127, answered on 02.04.2025. | 2025 |
| 3 | President vacancy | District Commissions | Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 5127, answered on 02.04.2025. | 2025 |
| 4 | Member vacancy | District Commissions | Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 5127, answered on 02.04.2025 | 2025 |
| 5 | Staff vacancy | State Commissions | RTI | 2025 |
| 6 | Women among president and members | State Commissions | RTI | 2024 |
| 7 | Women share among staff | State Commissions | RTI | 2024 |
| 8 | Case clearance rate | State andDistrict Commissions | Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 4320, answered on 26.03.2025 | 2020 to 2024 |
| 9 | Cases pending (%) for more than three years | State Commissions | RTI | 2025 |
| 10 | District commissions as a percentage of districts | District Commissions | Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 4320, answered on 26.03.2025 | 2025 |
| 11 | Budget utilisation | State Commissions | RTI | F.Y. 2024-25 |
[1]Kindly refer to the full report for detailed data tables. Available at: https://indiajusticereport.org/
[2]The Consumer Protection (Jurisdiction of the District Commission, the State Commission and the National Commission) Rules, 2021. Available at: https://consumeraffairs.gov.in/public/upload/files/232278_1732705181.pdf
[3] CONFONET was an Online Case Management System administered by the Department of Consumer Affairs to digitise the functioning of the consumer commissions across India, enabling end-to-end digital tracking from case filing to judgment at the district, state, and national levels. To modernise this framework, CONFONET 2.0 was introduced in December 2023. Subsequently, CONFONET has been subsumed into e-Jagriti, launched on 1 January 2025 as a unified platform that integrates CONFONET with other legacy systems to deliver a seamless, citizen-centric ecosystem for faster and transparent consumer justice. It allows advocates to manage cases and hearings, while providing judges secure access to end-to-end digital case files, analytics, and virtual courtrooms to facilitate faster, infrastructure-light adjudication.
