The Consumer Protection (Mediation) Regulations, 2020

Consumer mediation runs on two instruments: the Central Government's Mediation Rules (empanelment standards and the excluded matters) and the National Commission's Consumer Protection (Mediation) Regulations, 2020, made under Section 103 and notified on 24 July 2020, which supply the working machinery, eligibility and selection in detail, the fee structure, training, conduct, the three-month clock, confidentiality and the mediator's immunity. This note covers the Regulations regulation by regulation.

1. The Panel: Entry, Exit and Upkeep (Regulations 3 to 9)

• Eligibility (Regulation 3): persons fit to mediate consumer disputes: retired judges, advocates of standing with ten years' or more experience, and professionals of comparable standing, with aptitude for mediation.
• Disqualifications (Regulation 4): the screens: adjudged insolvency, charges or convictions involving moral turpitude, disciplinary action, and like disabilities, keeping the panel's integrity unarguable.
• Empanelment (Regulation 5): through the selection committee of the Commission (the President and a member), for the cell attached to that Commission, with the panel's five-year rhythm under the Rules.
• Removal and re-empanelment (Regulations 6 and 7): the unsuitable mediator is removed; continuation is performance-based, re-empanelment considers the record, settlements, conduct, complaints, so the panel is re-earned, not tenured.
• Training (Regulation 9): training is mandatory, the judge's or advocate's craft is not assumed to be the mediator's; the skill is taught and refreshed.

2. Money, Conduct and Process (Regulations 8 and 10 to 12)

• The fee (Regulation 8): a consolidated fee for a successful mediation, and half that fee where mediation fails, in each case shared equally by the parties, a structure that prices the track below adjudication and gives the mediator a stake in settlement without coercive incentive, since failure still pays half.
• Code of conduct and disclosure (Regulation 10): impartiality, independence, and the continuing duty to disclose any interest, relationship or circumstance bearing on either, with withdrawal or replacement where neutrality is compromised.
• The proceedings (Regulation 11): conducted within the cell, with the parties present (or representatives empowered to settle), guided by natural justice and fairness rather than procedural codes, and bounded by the clock: mediation stands terminated on the expiry of three months from the date of first appearance, unless the Commission extends, the deadline that keeps the consensual track from becoming the slow one.
• The mediator's role (Regulation 12): a facilitator of voluntary resolution: assisting the parties to identify issues and explore options, without imposing terms, predicting outcomes, or advising either side, settlement is the parties' act, witnessed and structured by the mediator.

3. Confidentiality, Immunity and Accountability (Regulations 13 to 16)

• Confidentiality (Regulation 13): strict, and physical: no audio or video recording of the sessions, and the events of the mediation kept confidential by mediator and parties alike, the shield that lets offers be made.
• Restricted communication (Regulation 14): the mediator's communication with the Commission is confined to what the Act requires, the settlement report or the failure report, never the parties' positions, concessions or conduct, so the adjudicator who may yet decide the case learns nothing from the mediation's inside.
• Immunity (Regulation 15): the mediator acting in good faith under the scheme is protected, the immunity that lets panels attract retired judges and senior professionals without litigation exposure for the settlement's aftermath.
• Reporting (Regulation 16): the cells report quarterly, references, outcomes, pendency, the administrative accountability that lets the Commissions and the public see whether the track is working.

Read with its siblings, the architecture is tidy: the Act (Sections 74 to 81) creates the cells, the reference and the settlement's effect; the Rules set empanelment standards and the excluded matters; the Regulations run the panel's life-cycle, the money, the three-month clock, the confidentiality walls and the mediator's protection, the operating manual of consumer mediation, made by the institution that administers it.

4. Related Topics and Provisions

• Mediation complete notes (Topic 51): Chapter V's process end to end
• The Mediation Rules, 2020 (Topic 113): the Government's half, empanelment and exclusions
• The Procedure Regulations, 2020 (Topic 118): the NCDRC's companion instrument
• Admission and procedure after admission (Topic 45): where the reference decision sits