The judgment mandates the delineation of enforceable accessibility rules under the RPWD Act, emphasizing that existing guidelines are insufficient for ensuring compliance and equal access for persons with disabilities.

JUDGMENT :

Dr Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, CJI

"Disability only becomes a tragedy when society fails to provide the things we need to lead our lives – job opportunities or barrier-free buildings. It is not a tragedy to me that I'm living in a wheelchair."

- Judith Heumann

1. This judgment arises from a Writ Petition instituted in 2005 seeking directions to ensure meaningful access to public spaces for persons with disabilities¹[“PWDs”]. On 15 December 2017, this Court rendered a judgement containing directions to all the States and Union Territories with eleven action points. In view of the slow progress in complying with the judgement, this Court appointed the Centre for Disability Studies, NALSAR University of Law²[“NALSAR-CDS”] to assess the situation on the ground and recommend steps to ensure compliance with accessibility standards for PWDs. We write this judgment in view of the report submitted by NALSAR-CDS to this Court and the submissions filed by the petitioner on the next steps to be taken. Submissions have also been filed by the Union of India.

A. Background

i. Genesis of the proceedings

2. The Petitioner, Rajive Raturi, is a visually challenged person who works with a human rights organisation. He instituted a Writ Petition before this Court in 2005 seeking directions to the respondents to take certain measures towards ensuring safety and accessibility in public spaces, such as roads, public transport and other facilities for visually challenged persons. At the time of filing the petition, the legislation governing the rights of persons with disabilities was the erstwhile Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995. The current framework is governed by the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016.³[“RPWD Act”]

3. By a judgment dated 15th December 2017,⁴[“2017 Judgement”] this Court, speaking through Justice AK Sikri, identified eleven action points pursuant to the RPWD Act and the Accessible India Campaign for compliance. These action points pertained to the accessibility of a range of infrastructure, including government buildings, railways, airports, ICT ecosystem and transport carriers. The Union of India, all States and Union Territories were directed to file their compliance affidavits, and the case was re-listed after three months. Most of the States and Union Territories did not provide the required information and failed to file their compliance affidavits within the period of three months.

4. This Court issued several orders directing the States and Union Territories to provide the requisite information with details of the status of completion and compliance reports. On 25 July 2018, this Court noted that while the Union of India had filed its affidavit, the response was not in accord with the directions in the 2017 judgement and “lacked material particulars”. This Court stipulated a format in which affidavits were to be filed by the Union of India, the States and the Union Territories.

5. On 15 January 2019, when the case was placed before a bench comprising Justice AK Sikri and Justice Abdul Nazeer, all the States and Union Territories had filed their affidavits. However, this Court noted that many States and Union Territ