The Allahabad High Court directed the State to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to lifts, gyms and other common facilities in residential buildings. The Court said, “It is a fundamental right of a person with disability to have right to accessibility for facilities common in a building.”
A Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court, comprising Justices Atul Sreedharan and Siddharth Nandan, directed Uttar Pradesh authorities to ensure that residential complexes provide designated parking and unobstructed access from those parking spaces to shared amenities such as lifts, pavements, playgrounds, community centres and gyms for persons with disabilities.
The Court emphasized that the government must enforce the Accessibility Rules when granting building permissions and before issuing completion certificates.
The Court said,
“The Development Authorities in the State of Uttar Pradesh to incorporate necessary guidelines, which may be necessary to ensure that persons with disability are not put to a inequitable position and the maps which is being sanctioned for such community living, it may be necessary that proper parking spaces may be made for persons with disability, from where there is a clear access to a common facility like lift; and also provisions for convenience of “persons with disabilities” to have access to other common facilities like pavement, playgrounds, community centres, gymnasium etc,”
The matter arose from a construction company’s challenge to an order under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, concerning the parking allocation for an allottee at SCC Sapphire, a housing project in Ghaziabad.
The allottee, who is 90% disabled, complained to the Ghaziabad Development Authority that her parking space had been divided by the builder eight years after she purchased the flat.
The State Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities found the complaint valid and concluded that the developer’s action impeded the complainant’s access to the lift. The builder contested the decision, alleging that the proceedings had been conducted ex parte; however, the Court noted that a representative of the builder had been present.
The Court also found that the parking had been split without the original allottee’s consent and therefore refused to overturn the Commissioner’s findings.
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The Court observed that the right to accessibility is now a fundamental right and extends to “community living” arrangements with shared facilities such as lifts, pavements, playgrounds, community centres and gyms.
The Court stated,
“We have no hesitation in holding that the ‘Right to Accessibility’ cannot be confined only in public places but as a fundamental right, it is also to be extended to a structure or building which is being utilized as “community living”; and as such right to accessibility which is a fundamental right, has to be adhered to in residential buildings, which caters to the requirement of providing a shelter with common facilities like lift, pavement, playgrounds, community centres, gymnasium etc. It is a fundamental right of a PWD to have right to accessibility, for facilities which are common in a building or structure, which is providing a shelter to an incumbent,”
Advocates Devendra Singh and Pravindra Singh represented the petitioner, while Advocate Tejasvi Misra appeared for the Ghaziabad Development Authority.
Case Title: Scc Builders Pvt. Ltd. v State of UP and 4 Others
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