Appeal sent by AMITA DHANDA and ANITA GHAI

Let us do it together!
The Supreme Court of India on 29th of November 2023 took up the long pending case of Rajive Raturi vs Union of India, and expressed dissatisfaction on the manner in which the Union, States and Union Territories were implementing their accessibility obligations. Since the reports submitted by the governmental authorities to the Court were also found unsatisfactory, the Court directed the Centre for Disability Studies (CDS), NALSAR Hyderabad:

to submit a report on the steps required to be taken in accordance with the guidelines and the Accessible India Campaign to, inter alia, make all State and Central Government buildings, airports, railway stations, public transport carriers, all Government websites, all public documents and the ICT eco system fully accessible to persons with disabilities.

The Court had asked the Union Ministry of Social Justice to take care of the logistics.

We at CDS felt that if we needed to make an independent report it had to be a civil society enterprise and we could not route it through the Union or the State governments.  Amita Dhanda therefore wrote to the Court seeking the liberty to create a civil society network of disabled people and their organizations and students of law, architecture and design. In order to retain the sanctity of the exercise we did not seek any funding but only asked for reimbursement of incurred expenses. The Court by its order dated 12th January 2024 has permitted CDS to adopt whatever modalities it deems suitable.

We are writing to seek your support to create this report but  wish to do this exercise in such a manner that the task of implementation is set in motion even as the report is being created.

Our proposal is to firstly formulate a minimum level of accessibility for all spaces, facilities, services for all disabilities across the country. This minimum level would vary from State to State depending on where the State or Union Territory is presently placed. Once the minimum level is settled, we negotiate with each government body to implement that minimum before we report to the Supreme Court. If a State cooperates, we report the cooperation and outline the next steps in our Report to the Court. If not, then we report what happened. This report will seek continual oversight and hopefully the implementation strategy tried at first can be continued in the future.

We invite disabled individuals and organizations of persons with disabilities to join this implementation network and can join it by filling the form  you will find at this link and send it to SAC@nalsar.ac.in. If you have any questions, concerns or suggestions you can write to the same id.

We want this report to lend voice to the accessibility needs of all disabilities whether or not included in the Persons with Disabilities Act 2016; all regions that is urban rural or hilly areas; all functional spaces that is educational institutions such as schools and colleges; health institutions such as hospitals and dispensaries and penal institutions such as prisons and custodial houses. Since this communication may not reach everyone at the same time, we invite interested persons to join whenever they come to know of the initiative.

Persons not having access to the internet can write to us at

Centre For Disability Studies, NALSAR University of Law, Shameerpet Hyderabad.

The Secretariat for the report will be based at CDS NALSAR and this Secretariat will process the information to be incorporated in the report.

WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT/

Amita Dhanda (Head, CDS, NALSAR) and Anita Ghai (Distinguished Fellow, CDS, NALSAR)