The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act is an ambitious step in the right direction

The rights of persons with disabilities received a magnanimous boost with the passing of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. The legislation is slated to bring about a paradigm shift in the way people with disabilities are perceived since it moves the focus from the individual and their disability to the lack of accessibility in the ecosystem or the environment. For instance, the inability of a hearing impaired person to communicate was attributed to his impairment. Now, it’s attributable to the absence of captioning and sign language interpretation, thus moving the focus from individual to the environment and how the ecosystem needs to be modified to meet the needs of persons with disabilities.  

The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act is a big step ahead from the previous legislation in recognising 21 disabilities in comparison with the seven which were recognised by the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995 which has now been repealed by the 2016 Act. The 2016 Act also creates a decentralised system of grievance redressal since it provides for designation of a Court of Session in every district as a “Special Court”. This very specific provision allows the opportunity to every aggrieved person with disability to seek justice under the RPWD Act within the limits of their district. Since the passage of the Act, the high courts and Supreme Court have through various judicial pronouncements reiterated the rights-based approach followed by the Act.

For instance, in Disability Rights Group & Anr v. Union of India, the Supreme Court observed that:  “To ensure the level playing field, it is not only essential to give necessary education to the persons suffering from the disability, it is also imperative to see that such education is imparted to them in a fruitful manner. That can be achieved only if there is proper accessibility to the buildings where the educational institution is housed as well as to other facilities in the said building, namely, class rooms, library, bathrooms etc. Without that physically handicapped persons would not be able to avail and utilise the educational opportunity in full measure…”

The states have to play a major role in the effective implementation of the 2016 Act. Most of the Act’s provisions require state governments to initiate the process of establishing adequate and competent systems for the implementation of the Act. In view of such existing provisions, this writer sought information under the Right to Information Act from all the state governments in relation to one Section of this Act— Section 84.

Section 84 states: “For the purpose of providing speedy trial, the State Government Shall, with the concurrence of the Chief Justice of the High Court, by Notification, specify in each District, a Court of Session to be Special Court to try the offences under this Act.” The inclusion of Section 84 in the Act is part of a larger framework to enable people with disabilities to approach the court in case of infringement of their rights and to achieve speedy justice in such cases.

Out of 36 states and Union Territories, 19 responded to the RTI applications. A notification has been issued under Section 84 in seven of these 19 states—Nagaland, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Orissa and Assam. In addition to this, a recent report released by Bangalore-based organisation Diversity and Equal Opportunity Center (DEOC), on the status of the implementation of the RPWD Act, mentions five more states and UTs where special courts have been notified. These are Andhra Pradesh, Pondicherry, Punjab, Telangana and Tripura.

Special courts are firstly based on the idea of decentralisation of “access to justice” for people with disabilities similar to the idea of decentralisation of governance through Panchayat Raj institutions in rural India. The manner in which people living in rural areas seek redressal of their grievances at Panchayats, similarly special courts have been envisioned as a system of ensuring justice in a decentralised manner within the districts. Secondly, before the 2016 Act was passed, a person with disabilities was required to approach the concerned high court for enforcement of their rights—an expensive and tedious process in terms of the distance between the place where the cause of action arose and the place of redressal.  

However, on several occasions, while hearing the case for the implementation of the Disability Act, the Supreme Court observed that the Centre had not done anything in order to bring the disabled population into the mainstream and create a level playing field as contemplated in the Act. (As per the 2011 census, out of the population of 121 crore, about 2.68 crore, or 2.21 per cent, persons are “disabled”.)

The new Act creates an obligation on the National Legal Services Authority and the State Legal Services Authority to proactively and equally with others include persons with disabilities in any scheme, programme, facility or service offered by them. In fact, to make the entire process of litigation accessible for persons with disabilities, the government is required to ensure “that the filing departments, registry or any other office of records are supplied with necessary equipment to enable filing, storing and referring to the documents and evidence in accessible formats” (Section 12 (4) (b) of the RPWD Act).  

Thus the system envisioned in the Act is quite strong. Section 84 establishes a right for access to justice and Section 12 provides for ways in which courts are to be made accessible for people with disabilities. In doing so, the Act appears ambitious; however, the true test will be in watching how the special courts are used by persons with disabilities in seeking further empowerment.