20-year legal battle leads to landmark housing reform for Karnataka’s people with disabilities
The Karnataka government has notified a historic 25 per cent price concession and 5 per cent quota for people with disabilities in all urban site allotments. The move follows a legal struggle by activist Chandrashekar Puttappa to enforce the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act.
The amendment is the culmination of a nearly 20-year legal battle led by Chandrashekar, 58, a social activist and engineer with 80 per cent locomotor disability (Image generated by AI). The Karnataka Government recently informed the Karnataka High Court that it has amended the Urban Development Authority (Allotment of Sites) Rules. The new amendment mandates a 5 per cent reservation in the allotment of sites across all Urban Development Authorities for people with disabilities, along with a 25 per cent concession on the allotment value.
The amendment is designed to enhance affordability and housing security, aligning state law with Section 37 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. This mandate requires local authorities to provide land at concessional rates for housing, business, and recreation for those with benchmark disabilities.
Justice Suraj Govindaraj, in an order dated April 27, took on record the government’s memo and the amended rules dated April 18, 2026.
Senior Advocate Jayna Kothari, representing the respondent Chandrashekar Puttappa, lauded the measure.
“There is no other state in which such an amendment has been carried out and such a benefit has been provided to persons with disabilities,” she stated.
The court has granted the Mandya Urban Development Authority four weeks to review the notification and submit its response regarding the next steps for implementation. The case is scheduled for further hearing on June 10.
Chandrashekar’s legal fight
The amendment is the culmination of a nearly 20-year legal battle led by Puttappa, 59, a social activist and engineer with 80 per cent locomotor disability. As the working president of the Karnataka Rajya Vikalachetanara Rakshana Samiti, Puttappa has been a vocal advocate for enforcing statutory rights.
In 2007, the Mandya Urban Development Authority notified sites in the Vivekananda Nagar Layout but failed to provide the then-mandatory 3 per cent reservation at concessional rates. In August 2007, Puttappa applied for a site, paying the required fees, but was ignored by the authority.
In 2013, after Puttappa approached the state commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, the commissioner directed the Authority to allot him a site. The Authority challenged the commissioner’s order in the Karnataka High Court in 2015, arguing it had already met the 2 per cent quota under the older 1991 rules and claiming Puttappa had never formally applied—a claim contested by his legal team.
Advocates Kothari and Aparna Mehrotra countered that the Mandya Urban Development Authority had never issued a specific notification inviting applications from the disabled category, thereby preventing many from accessing their rightful quota.
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