Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

India’s RPwD Act is continuing to evolve beyond 2016. Courts, citizens are still rewriting it

Too often, rights are realised only by those with the resources, support systems, or institutional access to claim them. But the promise of the RPwD Act was never contingent on model citizenship.

We often imagine legislative actions as static and unchanging — suspended in time. However, if the Indian Constitution is any proof, legislative interventions are rarely a monolith. Rights-granting acts are in a constant state of flux — often moulded and remoulded by bottom-up advocacy from those who hold those rights and top-down interventions by the judiciary. The RPwD Act is an exceptional example of the dialectic between rights bearers and rights upholders, continuously expanding the realm of rights for Persons with Disabilities (PwDs).

Chapter VIII of the RPwD Act placed accessibility at the heart of government responsibility and recognised it as a defining element of everyday life—from transportation to consumer goods. Chapter VI of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Rules, 2017, further provided for the enforcement of these provisions. However, low budgetary allocations, lack of awareness about the Act, and disability being a state subject have created bottlenecks in the implementation of the Act. Given these circumstances, the judiciary has played a critical role – not just in expanding the envelope on the issue but in the implementation of the act itself.

Take, for example, the Rajive Raturi vs Union of India judgment in November 2024, which reinforced accessibility as a cornerstone in the rights ecosystem for PwDs. The Supreme Court noted that the absence of non-negotiable rules and excessive reliance on guidelines compromised the effective realisation of accessibility rights. It called for Rule 15(1), which dealt with accessibility to be invalid (ultra vires) as it was recommendatory in nature and failed to align with the RPWD Act’s intent. Consequently, the SC directed the Union Government to define clear mandatory standards of accessibility. 

Building on this momentum, the Supreme Court extended the accessibility discourse into the digital sphere through its landmark ruling in Pragya Prasun & Ors. v. Union of India and Amar Jain v. Union of India & Ors. (2025). Although accessibility within the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) ecosystem........

© ThePrint