Consideration Paid, Not Compensation Claimed, Can Decide Consumer Commission Jurisdiction: Supreme Court Upholds 2019 Act

The petitioner's husband died when his Rs. 31.19 lakh car caught fire in 2018; her Rs. 51.49 crore complaint had to go before the District Commission, Vadodara, though under the 1986 Act she could have approached the National Commission directly, so she challenged the 2019 Act under Article 32 (para 2). In the connected appeal, the National Commission rejected a Rs. 14.94 crore insurance claim because the consideration did not exceed Rs. 10 crore (para 3). The 2019 Act moved the basis of jurisdiction from compensation claimed to consideration paid (para 4), which the challengers called anomalous and discriminatory (para 6).

Parliament's power under Entry 95 of List I and Entries 11-A and 46 of List III to organise courts includes prescribing pecuniary limits, as Narottamdas Jethabhai recognised (para 9). Under the Anwar Ali Sarkar twin test, classification by the value of consideration is valid, because consideration is essential both to a contract and to being a consumer under Section 2(7) (para 10). It is not a suspect classification: consideration relates more closely to compensation than a consumer's self-assessed damages, and it has a rational nexus with a hierarchy of remedies (para 11). No remedy is lost, because the claim stays unrestricted and the higher commissions remain accessible, and no consumer may pick a forum by inflating a claim, as Nandita Bose shows (para 11). The grievance that insurance claims now fall mostly to District Commissions shows no illegality but calls for a performance audit of the statute, which Yash Developers treats as the executive's duty (para 12). The Central Consumer Protection Council and Authority under Sections 3 and 10 are duty bearers whose functioning is subject to judicial review (para 12).