NLS Faculty Seminar | Accommodating Disability ‘Reasonably’: The Indian Supreme Court and the Shifting Contours of ‘Reasonable Accommodation’ Under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016

In this week’s faculty seminar, Ishita Ghosh, Academic Fellow, will be presenting her paper titled “Accommodating Disability ‘Reasonably’: The Indian Supreme Court and the Shifting Contours of ‘Reasonable Accommodation’ under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016.” The seminar will be held on March 26, 2025, at 3:45 pm, in the Ground Floor Conference Hall at NLSIU’s Training Centre.

Abstract

The principle of reasonable accommodation (RA) for persons with disabilities forms an indispensable component of the Rights of Persons with Disability Act, 2016. Largely mirroring Article 2 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2006, the principle is considered to be an elucidation of the doctrines of ‘equality before the law’ and ‘equal protection under the law’ contained in Article 14 of the Indian Constitution.

Considered to be an innovative, progressive and inclusive principle that exemplifies the right  of the disabled to be treated equally, and afforded equal opportunity, while placing a corresponding obligation or duty on the State to ensure the realisation of these core rights. An enquiry into its constituent elements reveals three main components, firstly, the requirement to make ‘necessary and appropriate modifications and adjustments” secondly, that ensures equal enjoyment of rights by the disabled as all others; thirdly, without imposing a disproportionate or undue burden on the authority in a particular case”. Yet, the application of the principles itself, alongside its very contents, has seen widespread conflict between the State and the disabled beneficiaries, and has required innovative-albeit inconsistent and piecemeal-approaches and arguments to be adopted by the higher judiciary to further the cause of the disabled, almost bordering on altruism. This raises concerns regarding the nature of RA, and elicits the need to dig deeper to locate what kind of norm is RA, and it is meant to serve as a vehicle to realise the right to equality and equal opportunity, or does it have an independent existence of its own?

In this paper, I argue that RA exists as a ‘duty-based norm’, rather than a ‘right-based norm’ or a ‘goal-based norm. More accurately, RA exists as a duty-based norm embedded with a goal-based framework of each particular legislation or precedent. In the context of RPwD, RA serves to provide an avenue or conduit for the realization of goals such as non-discrimination, equality, inclusivity and accessibility for disabled individuals. Through an exploration of the jurisprudential treatment of RA by the Indian Supreme Court, revealed a conceptual puzzle at the heart of the Court’s attempts to grant relief to disabled claimant(s) under the principle of RA due to a misreading of RA as a ‘right-based norm’ under the RPWD, as opposed to a ‘duty based norm’. This means that as opposed to being simply a pre-existing justiciable right which the individual/group can seek to enforce before a Court of law, reasonable accommodation creates a conditional duty on the State to make provisions even in the absence of a right, so far as the State can realistically and ‘reasonably’ accommodate.