File a consumer complaint online via eDaakhil (2026 guide)
TL;DR: eDaakhil was the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission’s online filing portal, launched on 7 September 2020. From 1 January 2025, eDaakhil and three other legacy systems were folded into a single unified platform called e-Jagriti. So if you search for “eDaakhil” today, you will end up filing on e-Jagriti. The process itself has not changed much: you register with an OTP, pick the right Commission based on what you paid, draft your complaint in a fixed format, attach a notarised affidavit and your evidence, pay a small fee online, and track the case from your dashboard. Most claims up to ₹5 lakh at the District Commission carry no filing fee. The two things that decide whether your complaint survives the first hearing are choosing the correct forum (pecuniary jurisdiction) and getting the affidavit and document set exactly right. This guide walks you through all of it for 2026.
On this page
- What eDaakhil was, and what it is now
- Who can file a consumer complaint
- Deficiency of service vs defective goods
- Pecuniary jurisdiction: which Commission hears your case
- The limitation period: the two-year clock
- Before you file: try the National Consumer Helpline first
- Registering on the portal
- Step-by-step: filing your complaint
- Fees: what you actually pay
- The affidavit and documents that get complaints rejected
- Mediation, hearings and tracking
- Frequently asked questions
What eDaakhil was, and what it is now
For most of the period between 2020 and the end of 2024, eDaakhil was the answer when an Indian consumer wanted to sue a company without travelling to a court. It let you file a case before a District, State or National Consumer Commission from your phone or laptop. The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) launched it on 7 September 2020, and over the next four years it became the default route for online consumer litigation across the country.
Then the Department of Consumer Affairs decided that four separate systems were three too many. eDaakhil for filing, OCMS (Online Case Monitoring System) for tracking, the NCDRC’s own CMS, and CONFONET for the lower commissions were all doing overlapping jobs in slightly different ways. On 1 January 2025, the government merged all four into one platform called e-Jagriti. According to the official launch coverage, “on 1 January 2025, the e-Daakhil portal along with OCMS, CMS, and Confonet applications were integrated into E-Jagriti”, and the new portal is now available across every state and union territory.
This matters for you in a very practical way. If you bookmarked eDaakhil years ago, or if a relative tells you to “go file on eDaakhil”, the underlying portal you will actually use is e-Jagriti at e-jagriti.gov.in. The brand “eDaakhil” still floats around in news articles, blog posts and even some government pages, but the live filing happens on the unified system. Old cases that were already running on eDaakhil, OCMS, CMS or CONFONET were migrated across, and you can pull them up using the “Old Case Format” option on the case status page.
The Ministry of Consumer Affairs has been keen to show that the merger worked. Government statements around National Consumer Day in late 2025 reported that the unified platform had crossed over 2.75 lakh registered users since the January launch. By the time the platform won a Silver Award at the National e-Governance Awards 2026, official figures put it at over 2.29 lakh consumer cases filed and more than 2.07 lakh disposed, an overall disposal rate the government quotes at 90.75 per cent. Whether those disposal numbers reflect quick justice or just migrated legacy cases being closed out is a fair question, but the direction is clear: paper filing at the Commission counter is being pushed firmly into the past.
The other thing worth knowing about the new platform is how different it is under the hood. The Department of Consumer Affairs describes e-Jagriti as an AI-enabled, paperless system built on a micro-service architecture, with a multilingual interface, chatbot assistance and voice-to-text input aimed squarely at consumers who are not comfortable with English legal forms. Most notably, virtual hearings are now described as the default mode, supported by hybrid video-conferencing across all NCDRC benches and 35 State Commissions. For an ordinary litigant, the practical promise is that you can file, pay, attend and track a case without leaving home, and that the system will message you at each stage by SMS and email. The reality on the ground still varies by Commission, as we will see, but the design intent is a consumer who never has to physically visit a court.
Throughout this guide, when we say “eDaakhil” we mean the consumer e-filing service as it exists in 2026, which is delivered through e-Jagriti. The mechanics below apply to that live portal.
Who can file a consumer complaint
The first thing to settle is whether you even count as a consumer. The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 defines a consumer fairly generously. Under the Act, a consumer is broadly any person who buys goods or hires services for a consideration, and the definition expressly includes purchases made “offline or online transactions through electronic means or by teleshopping or direct selling or multi-level marketing”. That last bit was the headline change in the 2019 law: a person who bought a defective phone on an e-commerce app has the same standing as someone who bought it from a shop down the road.
There is one well-known exclusion. A person who buys goods or services for “commercial purpose” is generally not a consumer, the idea being that the Act protects end-users rather than businesses resaling for profit. But the Act softens this with an exception for people who buy something to earn a livelihood through self-employment. A small tailor who buys a sewing machine to run a one-person business, for example, has typically been treated as a consumer.
It is also worth knowing that the person who files is not limited to the buyer. The Act’s definition of “complainant” is deliberately wide. It includes the consumer, a recognised consumer association, the Central or State Government, the Central Consumer Protection Authority, one or more consumers where there are numerous consumers with a common interest, and in the case of death, the legal heir or legal representative. This is why a consumer organisation can take on a manufacturer on behalf of thousands of affected buyers without each of them filing separately.
For most readers, the situation is simple. You paid for something. It was defective, or the service was poor, or the seller cheated you, and the company is not making it right. That is enough to file.
Deficiency of service vs defective goods
The portal asks you to classify your grievance, and consumers often get confused between two categories that the Act treats differently: defective goods and deficiency of service. Getting this right helps you frame your complaint and your relief.
A “defect” relates to goods. It means any fault, imperfection or shortcoming in the quality, quantity, potency, purity or standard of a product. A washing machine that stops working within the warranty period, a packet of food past its real shelf life, a phone with a cracked panel out of the box, these are defects in goods.
A “deficiency” relates to services. It means any fault, shortcoming or inadequacy in the quality, nature and manner of performance of a service. A delayed flight with no refund, a builder who hands over a flat two years late, an insurer who wrongly rejects a valid claim, a bank that debits charges you never agreed to, a hospital that bills for treatment it did not provide, these are deficiencies in service. As one legal analysis of deficiency of service notes, the concept has been read broadly by the commissions over the years to cover a wide range of professional and commercial failures.
Why does the distinction matter in practice? Because your relief is shaped by it. For defective goods you usually ask for replacement, repair or refund. For deficient services you usually ask for the service to be completed, for the wrongful charge to be reversed, or for compensation for the loss and harassment caused. Many real complaints involve both. A faulty car (defect) that the dealer then refuses to repair under warranty (deficiency) is a single complaint covering two heads. You do not need to pick one and abandon the other. You simply describe both clearly and ask for relief on both.
There is a third bucket the Act recognises: unfair trade practice. This covers misleading advertisements, false claims about a product, bait pricing, and similar conduct. If a company advertised “100% cotton” and sold you polyester, that is an unfair trade practice, and you can plead it alongside a defect or deficiency.
Pecuniary jurisdiction: which Commission hears your case
This is the single most important decision you make, and the one most beginners get wrong. Consumer disputes are heard at three levels, and which one hears yours depends on the money involved. File at the wrong level and your complaint gets returned, costing you weeks.
Under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, the basis for this changed from the old 1986 law. Earlier, the limit was tied to the compensation you claimed. Now it is tied to the value of the consideration paid, that is, what you actually paid for the goods or services. The current thresholds were set by a notification dated 30 December 2021 and are as follows:
| Commission | Value of consideration paid | Where it sits |
|---|---|---|
| District Commission | Up to ₹50 lakh | In your district |
| State Commission | More than ₹50 lakh up to ₹2 crore | In your state capital (usually) |
| National Commission (NCDRC) | More than ₹2 crore | New Delhi |
A worked example helps. Say you paid ₹8 lakh for a car that turned out to be defective, and you want ₹8 lakh refunded plus ₹5 lakh compensation for harassment. Under the old law, your claim of ₹13 lakh would decide the forum. Under the 2019 Act, the figure that counts is the ₹8 lakh you paid, so you file at the District Commission, comfortably under the ₹50 lakh ceiling. The compensation you ask for does not push you up to a higher forum.
This shift was challenged in court, and in 2025 the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the pecuniary jurisdiction clauses, confirming that Sections 34, 47 and 58 of the Act correctly base jurisdiction on the consideration paid rather than the compensation claimed. So this is now settled law, not a grey area.
There is a second jurisdiction question alongside the money one: territorial jurisdiction. The 2019 Act made life easier for consumers here. A complaint can be filed where the opposite party carries on business, but also, importantly, where the complainant resides or personally works for gain. This is a genuine improvement over the older position, because it means you can usually file in your own district rather than chasing a company to its head office in another city.
The limitation period: the two-year clock
Consumer law gives you a window, not an open-ended right. Section 69 of the Act provides that a Commission “shall not admit a complaint unless it is filed within two years from the date on which the cause of action has arisen”, as set out in this reading of Section 69.
The phrase “cause of action” does the heavy lifting. It is the moment your grievance crystallised, not necessarily the date you bought the product. If a washing machine fails eight months into a two-year warranty and the company refuses to repair it, the cause of action arises when they refuse, not when you bought it. If an insurer rejects your claim by letter, the cause of action is the date of that rejection. Pin this date down honestly, because the company’s lawyer will attack it.
If you are past two years, all is not automatically lost. The same provision lets a Commission entertain a late complaint “if the complainant satisfies it that he had sufficient cause for not filing the complaint within such period”, and the Commission must record its reasons for condoning the delay. “Sufficient cause” is read strictly, though. Forgetting, or simply being busy, will not cut it. Serious illness, ongoing correspondence that kept the dispute alive, or genuine concealment by the company are the kinds of reasons that have worked. The safe rule is brutally simple: do not wait. File well inside the two years.
A practical tip for the draft itself: your complaint should contain a short, separate paragraph stating that it is within the limitation period and explaining when the cause of action arose. Commissions look for this. Leaving it out is one of the small drafting gaps that invites a scrutiny objection.
Before you file: try the National Consumer Helpline first
Filing a case is not always the fastest route to a refund, and the government would rather you did not file one if a phone call can fix it. Before you commit to litigation, the National Consumer Helpline (NCH) is worth a serious try. It runs as a pre-litigation grievance mechanism, and you can reach it on the toll-free number 1915, through WhatsApp and SMS on 8800001915, by email at [email protected], through the NCH and UMANG apps, or via the web portal.
The helpline is part of INGRAM, the Integrated Grievance Redressal Mechanism, which puts consumers, companies, regulators and call centres on one platform. In practice, when the NCH escalates a grievance to a “convergence partner” company, many disputes get resolved without any case at all, because companies prefer a quiet refund to a formal proceeding on their record. The Department of Consumer Affairs has been actively promoting the NCH and e-Jagriti together as a two-tier system: try the helpline first, escalate to the Commission if it fails.
Two honest caveats. First, the NCH has no power to order a company to do anything. It facilitates and persuades; it does not adjudicate. Second, raising a grievance on the NCH does not stop your two-year limitation clock for the Commission. So use it, but if a few weeks pass with no real movement, do not let the helpline lull you into missing your filing deadline.
For internal-facing grievances like a government department ignoring your application, a different tool applies. If your complaint is really about a public authority’s information or process, the route may be a right to information request rather than a consumer case. Knowing which forum fits which grievance saves a lot of wasted effort.
Registering on the portal
You file as a registered user, so the first job is an account. Go to the consumer filing portal, which today is e-Jagriti, and look for consumer registration. You will need a working mobile number and email, because both are verified by OTP, and a soft copy of an identity document.
The accepted IDs are the usual set: PAN card, Aadhaar, voter ID, passport, ration card, BPL or AAY card, or a driving licence. Per the registration guidance, these should be uploaded as a PDF. You enter your name, mobile and email, set a password, and then verify. As one step-by-step account of registration describes it, “the portal sends an OTP to mobile and email, both must be verified before login is enabled”. So keep both your phone and your inbox open while you register.
A couple of small things trip people up at this stage. The name you register with should match the name on the ID you upload and, crucially, the name that will appear on your affidavit later. Mismatches between these three are a recurring reason complaints get bounced at scrutiny. And if the OTP does not arrive, wait a minute or two before requesting another, and double-check you typed the mobile number correctly rather than spamming the resend button.
Once your account is active, you log in with your registered mobile number and a password or OTP, and you land on a dashboard. From here you file new complaints, save drafts, make payments and track existing cases.
Step-by-step: filing your complaint
With an account ready, the filing flow itself is broadly the same as it was on eDaakhil. Budget yourself a clear half hour to forty minutes, more if your documents are not ready, and have everything in PDF before you start so you are not scrambling mid-upload.
Step 1: Start a new case and pick your Commission. From your dashboard, choose to file a new complaint or case. The portal asks you to select the forum, District, State or National. Use the pecuniary jurisdiction table above, based on what you paid. This choice flows from your dashboard into everything that follows, so get it right here.
Step 2: Enter the parties. You add the complainant details (you) and the opposite party details (the company or individual you are suing). Get the opposite party’s correct name and registered address. “Big Telecom” is not a party; the registered company name and address on your invoice is. If you are suing both an e-commerce platform and the seller on it, you can name more than one opposite party.
Step 3: Choose the case category. This is where the defect versus deficiency distinction from earlier comes in. Classify the grievance, for example deficiency in service or defect in goods, so the complaint is routed and tagged correctly.
Step 4: Upload your drafted complaint. This is the heart of the filing. The portal expects a complaint drafted in a fixed structure and uploaded as a PDF. A practitioner-oriented account of the e-Jagriti document set lists the components most commissions expect: an index, a memo of parties, the proforma, a synopsis, a list of dates and events, the consumer complaint itself, a notarised affidavit, and then the supporting documents. The complaint body should cover the facts, the cause of action, the basis for the Commission’s jurisdiction, the limitation statement, the relief you want, and a verification clause.
Step 5: Attach evidence. You upload supporting documents, typically as PDFs or images. Most accounts describe a limit in the order of up to ten files of a few megabytes each, so combine and compress where you can. The standard evidence set is your invoice or receipt, ID proof, the correspondence trail (emails, WhatsApp chats, support tickets), proof of payment, photos of the defect, and the notarised affidavit.
Step 6: Pay the fee online. The portal redirects you to the NCDRC payment gateway, which accepts UPI, net banking and cards. Fees are covered in the next section, and many District-level claims are free.
Step 7: Submit and save your number. On submission you receive a registration or case number by SMS and email. Keep it. That number is how you track everything from here.
One genuine wrinkle deserves a flag. Several practitioner guides note that for the case to be formally listed before the Commission, a physical or offline set of papers may also be required, with one filing guide warning that “if you do not file the complaint offline, your case will not be listed before the Consumer Commission”. Practice varies between commissions and is in flux as e-Jagriti pushes everything online. Do not assume the online submission is the end of the story. Call or check with the specific Commission’s registry about whether a hard-copy set is still needed for your forum.
Fees: what you actually pay
Consumer filing is meant to be cheap, and for most ordinary disputes it is. The fee is tied to the value of your claim, and the lowest band at the District level is free. The figures below are drawn from widely reproduced fee schedules for the portal; always confirm the current amount on the payment screen, since fee notifications can be revised.
| Claim value | Filing fee | Forum |
|---|---|---|
| Up to ₹5 lakh | Free | District |
| ₹5 lakh to ₹10 lakh | ₹200 | District |
| ₹10 lakh to ₹20 lakh | ₹400 | District |
| ₹20 lakh to ₹50 lakh | ₹500 | District |
| ₹50 lakh to ₹1 crore | ₹2,000 | State |
| ₹1 crore to ₹2 crore | ₹4,000 | State |
| ₹2 crore to ₹4 crore | ₹5,000 | NCDRC |
| ₹4 crore to ₹6 crore | ₹6,000 | NCDRC |
| Higher bands | Up to ₹7,500 ceiling | NCDRC |
The takeaway for the typical reader is reassuring. If you are fighting over a ₹40,000 phone, a ₹2 lakh insurance claim or a ₹4 lakh builder dispute, the filing fee is zero. The cost is your time and the effort of getting the paperwork right, not money paid to the system. Even at higher bands, the fee is trivial next to the amounts in dispute.
What is not free, if you choose to use one, is a lawyer. You are allowed to argue your own consumer case, and many people do, especially at the District level for straightforward defect claims. For a complex matter, a builder dispute with technical issues, a large insurance rejection, a medical negligence claim, hiring an advocate who knows the local Commission’s habits is usually money well spent. The Act and the portal do not require it, but the affidavit and drafting standards described next are exactly where self-filers most often slip.
The affidavit and documents that get complaints rejected
Here is the unglamorous truth that decides outcomes: most first-round rejections are not about the merits of your grievance. They are about the affidavit and the document set. Get these mechanically correct and your complaint sails through scrutiny. Get them wrong and you lose weeks to objections before a judge ever reads your story.
The affidavit is a sworn statement that the contents of your complaint are true to your knowledge. It must, in almost every Commission, be on stamp paper or e-stamp and notarised. The recurring failure points, drawn from a practitioner checklist of rejection causes, are worth memorising:
- The affidavit is not on stamp paper or e-stamp.
- The affidavit is not notarised, or the notary’s stamp and seal are missing.
- The name on the affidavit does not match the name on the ID or the complaint.
- The paragraph numbers in the affidavit do not match the paragraphs of the complaint (this happens when you edit the complaint after preparing the affidavit and forget to renumber).
- The jurat, the bit at the end recording the place, date and notary details, is incomplete or wrong.
Beyond the affidavit, a few document habits keep complaints clean. Combine related papers into single, clearly named PDFs rather than dumping twenty separate files. Make sure every document you refer to in the complaint body is actually attached and, ideally, marked with an exhibit number that the complaint cross-references. Keep file sizes within the portal’s limits so uploads do not silently fail. And re-read your limitation and jurisdiction paragraphs one last time, because those two are where a careful opposing counsel will probe first.
If your dispute is genuinely complex, this is the honest moment to consider help. The Niyam approach to any new matter is to read the controlling rules and the relevant orders before drafting, the same discipline that pays off when reading a judgment so you can frame your facts the way a Commission expects to receive them. A complaint written in the structure the forum wants, with a clean affidavit, is worth more than a passionate one that gets bounced at the counter.
Mediation, hearings and tracking
Filing is the start, not the end. Three things happen after you submit, and it helps to know the shape of them.
Admissibility. The Act builds in a speed nudge. The Commission is expected to decide on admitting your complaint within 21 days of filing, and if it does not act in time the complaint is, in principle, deemed admitted. In practice, scrutiny objections (usually about the affidavit and documents above) are raised in this window, which is exactly why getting the paperwork right up front saves you the most time.
Mediation. The 2019 Act made mediation a formal part of consumer dispute resolution. Chapter V of the Act (Sections 74 to 81) provides for Consumer Mediation Cells to be established at the National, State and District Commissions. Where a Commission sees scope for settlement, it can refer the dispute to mediation, as explained in this overview of mediation under the Act. Parties get a short window to accept or reject the referral. If mediation succeeds, the Commission records the settlement and disposes of the matter, and crucially, no appeal lies against an order passed on a mediated settlement, because both sides agreed to it. Mediation is faster, cheaper and less adversarial than a full contest, and for many disputes it is the smarter outcome. It sits alongside other settlement-focused forums like the Lok Adalat system, which Indian litigants increasingly use to avoid drawn-out proceedings.
Hearings and tracking. e-Jagriti is built to be paperless and remote, with virtual and hybrid hearings promoted as core features, so in many matters you can attend by video rather than travelling to the Commission. You track everything from your dashboard using the case number from filing: the cause list, daily orders, scrutiny status and judgments. If you have an old eDaakhil or CONFONET case, you can still find it through the “Old Case Format” option after the migration.
Two endgame points. If you win and the company does not comply, the Act provides for enforcement of orders, including penalties for non-compliance, so a favourable order is not a paper tiger. And if you lose, you generally have 30 days to appeal to the next level up, District to State and State to National, though a settlement reached through mediation under the Act is not appealable. For grievances that are really against the State or a public authority rather than a private seller, remember that the consumer forum may not be the right door at all; a writ petition before a High Court is the constitutional remedy for that kind of dispute.
Frequently asked questions
Is eDaakhil still working in 2026, or do I have to use e-Jagriti? eDaakhil as a standalone portal was merged into e-Jagriti on 1 January 2025. The live consumer e-filing now happens on e-Jagriti at e-jagriti.gov.in. The name “eDaakhil” still appears in older articles and even some government references, but the underlying service is the unified platform. Old eDaakhil cases were migrated and can be found using the “Old Case Format” option.
How much does it cost to file a consumer complaint online? For most ordinary disputes, very little. Claims up to ₹5 lakh at the District Commission carry no filing fee at all. Above that, fees rise modestly with the claim value, reportedly around ₹200 to ₹500 at the District level and a few thousand rupees at the State and National levels. Always confirm the exact figure on the portal’s payment screen.
How is the right Commission decided? By the value of the consideration you paid, not the compensation you ask for. Up to ₹50 lakh goes to the District Commission, more than ₹50 lakh up to ₹2 crore to the State Commission, and above ₹2 crore to the National Commission. The Supreme Court confirmed this consideration-based test in 2025.
What is the time limit to file? Two years from the date the cause of action arose, under Section 69 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. A Commission can condone a delay only if you show sufficient cause and it records its reasons. The safe approach is to file well within two years.
Do I need a lawyer to file? No. You can file and argue your own case, and many people do, especially for straightforward District-level disputes. For complex matters, like medical negligence or large builder or insurance disputes, an advocate familiar with the local Commission is usually worth it. The most common self-filer mistakes are in the affidavit and document set, not the argument.
What evidence should I attach? The invoice or receipt, your ID proof, the full correspondence trail (emails, WhatsApp chats, complaint tickets), proof of payment, photos of the defect, and a notarised affidavit on stamp paper. Make sure every document you mention in the complaint is actually attached and cross-referenced.
What happens after I file? The Commission scrutinises admissibility (the Act contemplates 21 days), the matter may be referred to mediation if settlement looks possible, and otherwise it proceeds to hearings, which on e-Jagriti can often be attended by video. You track progress from your dashboard using your case number, and if you win, the order is enforceable; if you lose, you usually have 30 days to appeal.
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This article is for general information and is not legal advice. Verify current portal procedures, fees and forum thresholds on the official e-Jagriti portal and with the relevant Consumer Commission, since rules and fee notifications change. For a specific dispute, consult a qualified advocate.