SC notice to Centre on plea seeking compliance with recommendations of disability commissions

The Supreme Court on Monday sought the Centre’s response on a plea seeking guidelines on effective and time-bound compliance by authorities with the recommendations of disability commissions. A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and PB Varale issued a notice on a public interest litigation filed by Shashank Pandey, a lawyer, and asked the Centre to respond to it.

The plea, filed through advocate Talha Abdul Rahman, has sought the apex court’s intervention to address the implementation gaps in the grievance redressal mechanism as provided in the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016.

Advocate Rahul Bajaj appeared for the petitioner in the matter. The bench posted the matter for hearing on July 21 and tagged the plea with another pending petition raising similar issue.

The plea said the Act provides for the appointment of the chief commissioner and state commissioners for persons with disabilities and both these offices were intended to function as monitoring and quasi-judicial authorities for ensuring protection of rights of persons with disabilities.

The plea said as per the provisions of the Act, the chief and state commissioners have been given the power to make recommendations, which the authorities concerned are mandated to comply with within three months. It said the authorities may refuse to comply with the recommendations so long as they furnish the reasons for the same to the disability commission and the aggrieved person.

“In practice, however, the data reveals that in a large majority of cases, authorities choose neither to comply with the recommendations of the disability commissions nor do they provide any justification for the same,” the plea said. It referred to Section 93 of the Act which deals with punishment for failure to furnish information.

“While recommendations of the CCPD (Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities) refer to the possibility of imposing Section 93 in case the requisite information is not furnished, in practice such a fine is never imposed,” the plea said.

It said this forces the complainants to approach the constitutional courts when recommendations of disability commissions are not complied with.

“This defeats the purpose behind having a specialised commission to deal with violations of disability rights, i.e., ensuring that such cases are adjudicated in a quick and effective manner without having to pass through the already overburdened regular court system,” it said. The plea also referred to Section 89 of the Act, which deals with punishment for contravention of provisions of the Act or rules or regulations.

“The disability commissions are, therefore, given powers under both Sections 93 and 89 to impose fines,” it said. The plea also flagged the issue of disability commissions in many states being not given appropriate resources in terms of financial allocations and manpower.

It said several disability commissions do not have an independent and functional website and a public-facing grievance redressal portal.

The plea said the failure to ensure effective, independent and empowered enforcement mechanisms under the Act violates Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to life with dignity.

It sought guidelines to ensure effective and time-bound compliance with the recommendations of the disability commissions and consequences for non-compliance, including the imposition of fines under the provisions of the Act.

Besides other directives, it has sought directions to conduct an independent audit of the offices of the chief commissioner as well as the state commissioners for persons with disabilities to identify the infrastructural gaps in their functioning and to direct that the same are addressed within a time-bound manner.