The Supreme Court set aside orders of the District Forum, State Commission and National Commission that had relegated a homebuyer's delayed-possession complaint to arbitration. Justice Vikram Nath held that Section 3 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 makes the consumer remedy additional to other remedies, and that once a complaint is admitted the proviso to Section 12(4) bars its transfer — reaffirming Emaar MGF v. Aftab Singh.
The Supreme Court set aside an NCDRC order that found medical negligence in antenatal care, when the complaint had pleaded negligence only in post-delivery management. A consumer forum cannot construct a new case the complainant never pleaded, and relief must stay confined to the case as pleaded.
The Supreme Court held that an allottee facing delayed possession is entitled to a refund with the agreed rate of interest, but cannot also recover the interest paid on a personal home loan. The contractual interest already compensates for every consequence of the delay, so stacking a separate loan-interest award amounts to impermissible double recovery.
The Supreme Court affirmed that a hospital is vicariously liable for the negligence of the doctors and staff it employs, upholding the NCDRC's finding of negligence in the death of a 27-year-old patient. It modified only the quantum, reducing the hospital's share of compensation from Rs 15 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.
The Supreme Court set aside an NCDRC finding of negligence against an eye surgeon, holding that a worsening outcome after surgery does not prove negligence. The Court reaffirmed the Bolam test and placed the burden of proving negligence on the complainant, who had led no expert evidence.
On 6 February 2026, a two-judge bench of Justices Manmohan and Rajesh Bindal upheld the finding of deficiency in service against the salon at ITC Maurya but set aside the NCDRC's ₹2 crore award, holding that a crore-rupee compensation claim cannot rest on presumptions, conjecture or unproved loss of earnings. The Court restricted the compensation to ₹25 lakh — the amount already released to the complainant. A digest of the holding and the principles for quantifying consumer compensation.
The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission found a surgeon guilty of gross medical negligence for removing a patient's healthy left kidney instead of her diseased right one, awarding the family a total of approximately ₹2 crore.
On 13 November 1995, a three-judge bench held that medical services rendered for consideration fall within 'service' under the Consumer Protection Act 1986, opening the consumer fora to patients alleging deficiency in treatment.
Decided on 4 April 1995, this judgment defined the 'commercial purpose' exclusion from the meaning of 'consumer' and held that the 1993 self-employment Explanation brings back the person who buys goods to earn a livelihood.
Decided on 5 November 1993, this judgment held statutory development authorities answerable as 'service' providers under the Consumer Protection Act, with no sovereign-function immunity, and authorised compensation for harassment recovered from the salaries of erring officers.
Decided on 25 March 1998, this judgment held that both the person who hires a medical service and the beneficiary of it are 'consumers', allowing distinct awards to an injured child and to its parents arising from a single act of negligence.
On 14 May 2024, the Supreme Court held that advocates' services fall outside the Consumer Protection Act, and doubted V.P. Shantha, referring the doctors question to a larger bench.
On 24 August 2020 a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court — Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and K.M. Joseph — held that DLF's failure to hand over possession of flats in 'Westend Heights', Begur, Bengaluru, within the contractual 36-month period constituted 'deficiency in service' under the Consumer Protection Act 1986; that flat-buyers were not confined to the meagre Rs 5 per square foot per month delay-compensation cap in the one-sided Apartment Buyer's Agreement; that the consumer forum could award just and reasonable compensation; and that 6% per annum simple interest on the entire amount paid was awardable in addition to the contractual delay compensation. The judgment crystallised the one-sided clause doctrine months before its formal articulation in IREO Grace Realtech (January 2021).
On 15 April 2026, a two-judge bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan held that a bank receiving cheques for collection acts as an agent of the customer and is bound to present the instruments within the validity period; the failure to do so — resulting in the cheques becoming stale, without a reasonable explanation — constitutes deficiency in service under the Consumer Protection Act. The Court moderated the compensation, reducing the consumer-commission award from 10 per cent to 6 per cent of the cheque amount with 6 per cent interest. A digest of the holding and the doctrinal architecture for banking-agent liability.
The Supreme Court's review judgment of 10 December 2018, authored by Justice Ashok Bhushan for a two-judge bench (Bhushan + U.U. Lalit JJ), holds that the 2015 amendment to Section 8 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 — making reference to arbitration mandatory 'notwithstanding any judgment, decree or order' — does not displace the regime of special legislation that creates non-arbitrable in rem statutory remedies. An arbitration clause in a builder-allottee agreement does not oust the jurisdiction of the consumer forum; the consumer remedy is at the consumer's option. The NCDRC Larger Bench order of 13 July 2017 was approved. The reasoning has since travelled into the RERA-CPA interface through Imperia Structures (2020) and IREO Grace Realtech (2021), with HC divergence emerging in 2024-26.
On 2 November 2020 a two-judge bench of U.U. Lalit and Vineet Saran, JJ. — the judgment authored by Lalit J. — held that Section 79 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016, which bars the civil-court jurisdiction over matters within the RERA Authority's remit, does not oust the jurisdiction of the consumer fora under the Consumer Protection Act 1986. The NCDRC and consumer fora are not 'civil courts' within the meaning of the Code of Civil Procedure; the Section 71(1) proviso, Section 88 and the 'without prejudice' framing of Section 18 of RERA preserve the consumer remedy alongside the RERA architecture. The choice of forum vests in the allottee, and the entitlement to maintain an action runs from the builder-buyer agreement date and not from the RERA registration date.
On 11 January 2021 a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court — Justices Indu Malhotra and Indira Banerjee — held that one-sided clauses in an apartment buyer's agreement, heavily favouring the developer through asymmetric cancellation, token delay compensation and restricted refund rights, constitute 'unfair trade practice' within Section 2(1)(r) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. The allottee is not bound by such clauses; the developer cannot enforce one-sided forfeiture; the consumer forum has jurisdiction to refuse enforcement; and where the developer fails to deliver possession, the allottee is entitled to refund with interest. The judgment formalises the 'one-sided clause' doctrine first articulated in Wing Cdr Arifur Rahman Khan v. DLF Southern Homes (August 2020) and aligns with Emaar MGF v. Aftab Singh (2018) on the preservation of statutory remedies against private contractual ouster.
On 4 February 2026 a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court — Justices Sanjay Kumar and K. Vinod Chandran — set aside the NCDRC's order of 23 August 2023 holding that a consumer complaint was maintainable despite prior RERA proceedings. The Court held that where two concurrent fora are available for the same cause of action, the homebuyer must elect one; having elected RERA, the homebuyer cannot retract to a parallel consumer-forum remedy on the same grievance. The decision narrows the concurrent-jurisdiction rule of Imperia Structures (2020) by overlaying election-of-remedies discipline — concurrent jurisdiction is preserved as a menu choice, not a buffet allowing migration mid-litigation. Concurrent jurisdiction at the outset is preserved; what is foreclosed is successive recourse to a second forum after election.