On 24 March 2026—exactly 311 days after the law came into effect—the Centre appointed Justice Alok Dhawan (retd), former Delhi High Court judge, as chairperson of the Indemnity Law Tribunal.
This leadership change ends a six-month vacancy that saw 78 policyholder complaints pile up.
“The new chairman comes with a mandate: dispose 70 % of pending cases before 30 June 2026,” said a ministry official who asked not to be named.
The tribunal deals only with disputes where policyholders allege unfair claim rejections or delays by general insurers and health-TPA managers.
And the first case on the new bench—FIR No. 1/2024—was listed for 3 April 2026 in Delhi’s District Court Complex 5.
The dispute involves ₹65 lakh in unpaid hospital cash for a policyholder in Noida who was treated at Max Super Speciality, Saket, in December 2023.
The policy was issued by Future Generali Health Insurance on 12 December 2022 and renewed every year till the insurer denied the ₹25,000 daily cash benefit last June.
The policyholder, 58-year-old retired army officer Col. Suresh Kapoor, said the denial letter arrived on 7 June 2025.
“I paid ₹1.4 lakh in premiums over five years, yet they said the pre-existing joint-replacement clause applied retroactively,” Kapoor told finance news.
The tribunal’s registry shows the insurer submitted its rejoinder on 3 March 2026, just 21 days before the judge’s appointment announcement.
Tribunal watchers said delays have added ₹12 crore in legal costs for policyholders nationwide in the last three years.
But Justice Dhawan’s predecessor, retired Supreme Court judge Vijay Shankar, handled only five cases in 18 months, pushing back hearing dates into 2028.
The current target is to finish 55 cases by June-end and keep the oldest complaint—FIR No. 9/2022—from lapsing before 2027.
Justice Dhawan told reporters on Monday: “We will schedule daily sittings and cap oral arguments to 30 minutes to dispose at least 12 cases a week.”
Indemnity Law’s own annual report shows 284 grievances in 2024, up from 142 in 2023.
The jump coincided with health insurance portals like Policybazaar launching a “Dispute Flag” tool on 11 March 2026, letting customers tag non-compliant TPA cases in real time.
The tool sends an automated alert to the tribunal’s registry, which now creates a weekly e-dashboard for the chairperson.
The dashboard, updated Wednesday by 9 a.m., flags cases where insurers have missed the seven-day statutory reply window set by IRDAI’s Master Circular No. R-LIFE/2023-24/03.
The new regime also introduces a conciliation track for claims below ₹5 lakh, handled by retired district judges on the tribunal’s panel.
Policyholders only need to upload the denial letter and KYC on the portal; the conciliator has seven calendar days to deliver a non-binding decision.
The first such conciliation session for Kapoor’s case was scheduled for 10 April 2026 with retired Delhi district judge Meena Bansal.
Insurers are bracing for a 40 % spike in complaints—from 164 in March 2025 to 230 this March—after celebrity investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’s estate filed a ₹22-crore claim dispute last week.
The estate’s case—FIR No. 5/2026—stems from a 2021 car-insurance policy taken by Jhunjhunwala’s BMW 7-Series (DL 2C A 9876) that caught fire in Mumbai in October 2024.
The insurer, Reliance General Insurance, denied the claim citing “intentional fire,” a verdict the estate is contesting.
Experts say the spike reveals a pattern: companies initially approve policies but reject claims citing “policy exclusion” or “lack of proof.”
The tribunal’s new fee schedule, notified 15 March 2026, halves the filing fee to ₹2,000 for claims under ₹25 lakh and caps the hearing fee at ₹5,000.
That’s a relief for small claimants like K. Murali, 32, a software engineer from Bengaluru whose ₹3.2 lakh bike-insurance claim was denied in January 2026 by Bajaj Allianz General Insurance.
The denial reason: “unaudited repair invoice.”
The tribunal’s registry received Murali’s complaint on 17 March 2026.
Justice Dhawan told reporters: “We aim to clear 80 % of two-wheeler insurance disputes in six months instead of the current two-year cycle.”
To speed things up, the tribunal will use WhatsApp reminders—verified numbers stored in its portal—issued at 3 p.m. every Tuesday to insurers who miss deadlines.
The first penalty notice under the new rule was served on 19 March 2026 to HDFC ERGO via SMS to their registered nodal officer +91 9810 432109.
The notice gives the company until 1 April 2026 to file a fresh rejoinder; failure invites a ₹5 lakh cost order for bringing “frivolous objections.”
Petitioners said the policyholder lobby group Bhartiya Prakriti Raksha Manch welcomed the move but asked for a country-wide helpline numbering 14447, identical to IRDAI’s existing toll-free line, to report delays.
“A toll-free help number will demystify the process for 40 % of policyholders who drop cases due to ignorance,” said the group’s national convener, Mrs. Sarla Sharma.
