SC, disability and the fight for priority: How PwD cases lumber through India’s judicial system

The case highlights the impact of delayed justice on people with disabilities (PwD). On December 29 last year, the Supreme Court issued a circular prioritising such cases, along with those involving acid attack victims, senior citizens over 80, people living below the poverty line and legal aid services.

While lawyers and disability activists have welcomed the move, many remain sceptical about its impact. Several point to chronic pendency in courts, warning that the problem is systemic and that, without institutional reform, the effect may be limited.

Disability rights advocate Rajiv Raturi notes that disability is largely a state subject, adding layers of delay in a federal structure. “Pendency is chronic,” says Raturi, a visually impaired person whose 2005 public interest litigation seeking accessible roads, footpaths and transport led to the Supreme Court’s 2017 judgment recognising accessibility as integral to the right to life and dignity.

He adds: “The recent circular prioritising PwD cases happened only because of sustained advocacy. Its effectiveness will depend entirely on implementation.”

The heavy financial cost

In his 2017 petition, Malhotra, born with arthrogryposis — a condition affecting limb development — argues that imposing GST on assistive devices places PwDs at a structural disadvantage. “You go [to the court] expecting that at least your side will be heard,” he says. “With the new circular, we hope that the matter will be taken up now.”

Malhotra’s petition, and its prolonged pendency, has become emblematic of how disability-related matters drift through the system — acknowledged as important, but rarely urgent. For many litigants, delayed justice carries a heavy financial cost.

But it is not the only such case. In November 2021, the National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD) filed a petition challenging a central government notification issued two months earlier granting a blanket exemption from disability reservation to all posts in three services: the Indian Police Service, the Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands Police Service, and the Indian Railway Protection Force Service.

Issued by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, the exemption rendered PwDs ineligible for reservation across these services, not only in combat roles, but also clerical, ministerial, technical and administrative posts.

“This was a complete erasure,” says Muralidhar Vishwanathan, a long-time disability rights campaigner and general secretary of the NPRD. “The law requires posts to be identified role by role, disability by disability. Instead, an entire service was exempted in one stroke.”

The decision to approach the Supreme Court was meant to circumvent chronic pendency in lower courts. Yet even there, the case has moved slowly, with only interim relief in March 2022 allowing PwDs to apply for the posts. Meanwhile, recruitment cycles have passed — a delay that Vishwanathan says often determines outcomes in disability rights cases.

This is the delay that prioritisation seeks to address. One example is the Delhi High Court, which has followed a version of this system since 2024. Under it, cases involving PwDs are flagged at the filing stage after submission of a disability certificate and placed at the top of the board.

“By and large, it works,” says senior advocate Roma Bhagat, who has handled disability-related litigation in multiple courts.

But there is a flipside: placing a PwD matter at the top of the board does not guarantee effective hearing or quick disposal, particularly for cases already pending.

“The anxiety is that the Supreme Court’s circular should not apply only to fresh cases. The real backlog is in the pending ones,” says Rahul Bajaj, co-founder of Mission Accessibility.

Prioritised listing is only one part of the problem. Another impediment is the absence of a database on PwD cases.

“There is currently no data being maintained or used by courts on PwD matters, even though the National Judicial Data Grid exists,” Bajaj says. “This issue at a structural level was pointed out to the Chief Justice of India in our representation [for prioritisation] in December 2025.”

Then there are procedural delays, such as extended timelines granted to the State and its agencies to respond. “Matters are adjourned again and again because the State hasn’t filed a reply, and very little consequence follows,” Bhagat says. “In writ matters, particularly in the High Court, cases are often allowed to drift until they are almost infructuous.”

One example is Raturi’s 2005 PIL. Although the Supreme Court issued a detailed judgment in 2017 recognising accessibility as integral to the right to life, it was only in 2024 — nearly 19 years after filing — that the State complied with the directions.

“For long periods, nothing moved,” Raturi says. “Even after the 2017 order, implementation was slow because government responses were unclear and inadequate.”

While lawyers can indicate a litigant’s disability at the filing stage, “that information is not used for listing or prioritisation in any meaningful way”, Bajaj says, adding that despite this, the Delhi High Court has seen faster resolution of PwD cases since prioritisation.

For litigants, this means that by the time a right is recognised, it may be too late. “Delay doesn’t just postpone justice; it changes the outcome,” Bhagat says. “Prioritisation alone is not enough. The deeper problem is endemic — repeated adjournments, procedural delays and lack of accountability. Unless that is addressed, PwD cases will continue to suffer despite being labelled ‘priority’.”

Despite these flaws, lawyers say the Delhi High Court shows that prioritisation can work but that justice in disability rights cases will remain elusive without reform at lower levels.

“Lower courts and tribunals do not have such a system,” senior advocate S K Rungta says. “The Central Administrative Tribunal is the worst. [There] cases from 2018 or 2019 are still pending. There’s no priority mechanism at all.”