Can a wheelchair user’s own home fall under the accessibility mandate of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016? The Supreme Court has issued notice on a PIL by an 82-year-old wheelchair user seeking to make housing accessible for persons with disabilities by barring building approvals for inaccessible residential projects.
New Delhi: On a public interest litigation asking for a declaration that residential buildings, apartment complexes and group housing projects fall within the accessibility mandate of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, the Supreme Court on Thursday issued notice and tagged the petition with a pending 2005 writ petition [Prakash Narayan Andhare v. Union of India and Others].
Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh sat together on the Bench that passed the order on November 5, 2026, after hearing counsel for the petitioner. The petition has been directed to be tagged with Writ Petition (Civil) No. 243 of 2005, and notice has gone to the Union of India, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and the Ministry of Rural Development.
Homes left outside the accessibility net, says the plea
The petitioner is accessibility activist Prakash Narayan Andhare, an 82-year-old wheelchair user. His petition says authorities have continued to fail in ensuring barrier-free access in residential buildings, apartment complexes, group housing developments and their common facilities, despite the statutory mandate in the 2016 Act.
Residential buildings across the country, the petition says, continue to be planned, sanctioned, built and occupied without accessibility requirements. It adds that the problem goes beyond lobbies and lifts, pointing to narrow doorways, inaccessible bathrooms and toilets and inadequate circulation space that keep wheelchair users from entering, moving within and using their own homes.
The plea surveys State building and development control regulations and describes the position as “fragmented and inconsistent”. According to the petition, Kerala has extended accessibility norms to apartments and flats and Gujarat has a broader framework, while Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Rajasthan apply them mainly to multi-unit or group housing. It says several States limit them to group housing on plots above 2,000 square metres, that Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Nagaland and Goa expressly exclude private residential buildings, and that Himachal Pradesh, Telangana, Sikkim and West Bengal have no meaningful residential mandate at all.
How the plea reads the 2016 Act
The plea rests on three provisions. Section 40 requires rules laying down accessibility standards for the physical environment in public facilities, and Section 44 bars the grant of building permissions, completion certificates and occupation certificates unless the building plan complies with those standards. The petitioner argues that Section 2(x), which includes “housing” in the definition of “public facilities and services”, brings residential housing within this scheme.
“Read together, the statutory scheme contemplates that accessibility must be incorporated into residential buildings at the stage of planning, design and construction itself, and not treated as an afterthought once construction is complete.”
The petitioner also links the issue to government housing. Section 37 of the Act requires reservation in housing allotment for persons with benchmark disabilities, and the PMAY-Urban 2.0 guidelines ask States to provide barrier-free access. Without binding construction standards, the petition argues, “the statutory reservation in housing is rendered illusory where the allotted dwelling units themselves remain inaccessible.”
What the petitioner wants
- A declaration that residential buildings, apartment complexes and group housing developments are governed by the accessibility mandate in Sections 2(x), 40 and 44 of the 2016 Act.
- A direction to incorporate these requirements into all building bye-laws, development control regulations and building approval systems within a time-bound period.
- A direction that no building permission, completion certificate or occupation certificate be granted for residential projects that do not meet the accessibility requirements.
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A notice, not a ruling
For now the order does only two things: it issues notice and ties the petition to the 2005 matter. The Court has expressed no view on the petitioner’s reading of the Act or on the reliefs sought, which will be considered once the Centre and the two ministries file their responses.
Why the hearing matters
Accessibility debates in India have largely centred on government buildings, transport and public spaces. This petition asks the Supreme Court to read the 2016 Act as covering private homes too, which would turn barrier-free design into a legal condition for building approvals rather than a matter left to each State’s bye-laws or to builders’ choice.
If the Court accepts that reading, it could bring a uniform national floor for residential accessibility and give real effect to the housing reservation for persons with disabilities. The responses of the Centre and the two ministries will show how the government reads Sections 2(x), 40 and 44 and whether it sees a need for binding residential standards.
Case Title: Prakash Narayan Andhare v. Union of India and Others
Case No.: Writ Petition (Civil) No. 1414 of 2026
Bench: Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh, Supreme Court of India
Date of Order: November 5, 2026
Appearances: AoR Ashutosh Senger with Advocates Rahul Bajaj and Sarah for the petitioner
