Posted by ccld201
24 September 2025The Internet is an indispensable part of our lives, and access to it by all is key to democracy. Yet, in India, digital infrastructure is rather poor and characterised by a design, that makes it not universally accessible to all regardless of (dis)abilities. This post discusses the right to accessibility for persons with disabilities (‘PWDs’).
The core argument is closely connected with the principle of digital self-determination (‘DSD’) as accessibility is precursory to the realisation of DSD. In India, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (‘DPDPA’) is built on the principle of DSD, as it sets out the principles of autonomy and agency to allow people to control the manner in which their data is processed online. In May 2023, the United Nations High-level Committee on Programmes laid down three foundational principles for data governance: value, trust, and equity. The ‘equity’ criterion outlines DSD as applicable to all, without discrimination on any grounds.
Digital Accessibility Issues for Persons with Disabilities
In 2024, the Indian Supreme Court held that the right to accessibility, including digital accessibility, is a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution protecting ‘life and liberty’. In 2024, the Indian Supreme Court also categorised the 2016 Right of Persons with Disabilities Act (‘RPwDA’) as a ‘super-statute’, for its quasi-constitutional effects. A denial of any right under the RPwDA is therefore directly tantamount to a fundamental right violation. Nonetheless, government websites continue to be inaccessible to PwDs. This impediment is despite the Guidelines for Indian Government Websites and Apps 3.0 (‘GIGW’) being compliant with Level AA of the international standard under Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1.
In 2025, the Supreme Court addressed this issue in Pragya Prasun and Amar Jain. The Court noted that banking, telecommunications, insurance, and mutual funds remained largely inaccessible to persons with visual disability due to technical requirements while completing the mandatory Know Your Customer (‘KYC’) due diligence procedure to verify the identity and legitimacy of customers. The Court therefore issued twenty directives, which include periodic accessibility audits for government websites, appointing nodal officers to ensure digital accessibility compliance and providing alternative modes to determine the ‘liveness’ or capture a ‘live photograph’ of individuals during the KYC procedure.
Accessibility of governmental websites remains constrained both by barriers in design and policy. While the RPwDA outlines a standard of ‘reasonable accommodation’, little has been done to achieve this in practice, including in digital spaces. Reasonable accommodation arguably requires a holistic review of existing structures in order to make adjustments and to ensure that PwDs, whose rights are recognised in law, are not in a worse-off situation in practice when seeking to access websites.
Moreover, the RPwDA under Section 42 places a positive duty on the government to ensure access to Information and Communication Technology (‘ICT’). It is important to understand the term ‘access’ as not merely access to physical devices or the Internet, but also access to use and reap the benefits of the whole digital ecosystem. What is then to be addressed is how digital spaces are designed, which in turn shapes user-experience for better or worse.
As a corollary, inaccessibility of websites renders PwDs increasingly dependent on others. Policies that create such externalities have overarching effects on agency, autonomy and privacy of PWDs and therefore provide only a semblance of justice.
Achieving Universal Design: A Right-based Solution
Addressing the barriers in design and policy requires a commitment to universal design (Section 2(x) of the RPwDA) and inclusive policy-making. Universal design refers to the design of products, spaces and services that cater to everyone’s needs without making a distinction between the abled and the disabled. A universal design thus views disability as a restriction caused by contemporary social structure. Web designs that overlook universal principles, therefore take no account of PWDs.
While measures to bridge the accessibility gap exist, their implementation remains an issue, which is compounded by factors such as illiteracy and lack of sensitisation. When web designers develop a product or service for PwDs as a technical add-on to a pre-existing design, it makes any attempt at bridging the gap a retrofit. For PwDs to have a non-exclusionary experience while interacting with technology, it is important for designers to be trained to imagine spaces as highly customisable rather than for PwDs to work their way around to conform to what is developed. It is therefore argued that to integrate universal design into the social fabric, India must embrace a rights-based approach, i.e. to view accessibility as a constitutional guarantee rather than a technical add-on.
Moreover, intersectional socio-economic barriers like gender, poverty, and location increase pre-existing disability-based exclusion. Policies must therefore be holistic, ensuring affordable assistive technology, digital literacy programs, and accessible content in regional languages. As the spectrum of disability includes multiple dimensions and types, what is required is a more customisable environment rather than a ‘one size fits all’ approach. Universal design benefits not only PwDs but also ageing populations, rural users with low bandwidth, and those with limited digital literacy, thus presenting itself as a truly inclusive model.
Conclusion
In 2024, the Indian Supreme Court developed an expansive disability-based jurisprudence in Rajive Raturi, In Re: Recruitment of visually impaired in Judicial Services, and Pragya Prasun. Translating universal design into practice now requires several gaps to be filled. Specific technical requirements in digital infrastructure for PwDs must be a rule, not an exception. While designers must be trained to adopt universal design principles, the same principles must form the core of legislation and policy in order to build spaces that integrate and empower PWDs. When universal design is built into the social fabric, PWDs gain agency and autonomy which are core both to their full participation in society and to democracy. In the digital space, it ensures that PWDs can seamlessly access and use digital infrastructure. This, in turn, guarantees that their right to accessibility and enables the realisation of their statutory rights and complies with the principle of digital self-determination.
Calvert Nazareth & Shreenithi Annadurai are students at School of Law, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore, India.