New Delhi: Companies based outside India that offer websites, apps, software or digital content to Indian users through platforms or intermediaries will, for the first time, have to meet mandatory disability-accessibility standards or risk fines, loss of registration and exclusion from government contracts, under draft rules the government has put out for public comments, ThePrint has learnt.
The Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, notified the draft Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Amendment) Rules, 2026 in the Gazette of India on 20 July. Objections and suggestions have been invited over the next 30 days. The rules stem from a Supreme Court order. In Rajive Raturi vs Union of India on 8 November, 2024, a three-judge bench held that Rule 15 of the 2017 RPWD Rules—that lists accessibility standards for the physical environment, transport, and information and communication—was ultra vires the parent Act, since it framed those standards as recommendations rather than binding requirements.
The court found that Rule 15 was worded in discretionary language, using formulations such as what establishments “may” do, which was at odds with the Act’s mandate that accessibility norms be non-negotiable and enforceable.The court gave the government three months to frame enforceable rules under Section 40 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, by carving out non-negotiable standards from the looser guidelines in Rule 15. That deadline was missed. The government began releasing the rules from July last year, after a delay that has since drawn scrutiny at compliance hearings. The ICT draft is the digital-sector piece of that exercise.
