New Delhi: On the very first day of his practice in April 2023, as he made his way to the lawyers’ canteen of the Delhi High Court, advocate Arvind, diagnosed with cerebral palsy when he was 2, realised that the canteen tables were not high enough to accommodate a person in a wheelchair, like himself.
Subsequently, when Arvind became a member of the Delhi High Court Accessibility Committee on 25 April, 2024, which was then chaired by Justice Rajiv Shakdher, he began advocating for greater inclusion and accessibility within the legal system, and actively worked to improve the court’s infrastructure for lawyers with disabilities.
“One transformative opportunity in my journey was when Justice Shakdher gave me the chance to become a member of the Delhi High Court Legal Services Committee and the Delhi High Court Accessibility Committee. Both roles allowed me to advocate for greater inclusion and accessibility within the legal system,” Arvind, founder of the law firm Verdict Legal Solutions, told ThePrint.
“I am especially grateful for Justice Shakdher’s swift and thoughtful response to my request to increase the height of a canteen table at the Delhi High Court. The new table is perfect for my wheelchair, enabling me to eat comfortably and promoting a sense of belonging,” Arvind said, adding that Justice Shakdher’s efforts truly exemplified how small, practical changes can make a big difference in fostering inclusion.
The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, requires every establishment, including government and private companies, to have an equal opportunity policy. The law also mandates that service providers, both private and government, comply with accessibility standards. While there is clearly a law and a catena of judicial pronouncements to that effect, their effectiveness remains to be seen on the ground.
And what about lawyers with disabilities navigating the myriad worlds of litigation, corporate law, and non-profit organisations? How do they view the world of law? Is it an enabling environment, and what can institutions and individuals do better to support persons with disabilities (PwDs) more effectively?
Of the many stories, one is about two visually impaired lawyers, Rahul Bajaj and Amar Jain, who founded Mission Accessibility in 2022, a non-profit that aims to create a society enabling equal and barrier-free participation for PwDs. Besides this, ThePrint interviewed Advocate-on-Record (AOR) Sanchita Ain, who suffers from dystonia, and Aanchal Bhateja, the first 100 percent visually impaired person to graduate from National Law School of India University (NLS) Bangalore. Bhateja recalled that initially the university had no idea about screen reader software, scanning of documents, or optical character recognition (OCR)—technology that converts text from images into machine-readable text.
Also read: SC order on accessibility for disabled persons presents an opportunity for universities
Not all disabilities begin at birth
Hailing from Bathinda, Punjab, Bhateja was not born blind. Due to a condition called retinopathy of prematurity, she was born prematurely, leaving her with about 30 percent vision in her left eye, while the right eye was completely non-functional.
“Until the age of 15, I was partially visually impaired, but my parents and I did not recognise my disability, and the first 15–16 years of my life were just spent trying to be at par with able-bodied persons. So, I struggled more and tried harder to match up to them in terms of academics, sports, and everything.”
In 2015, after Bhateja’s mother passed away due to multiple organ failure, she vowed to pursue medicine, hoping to ensure that no other child faced what she did.
“But, as fate would have it, 8-9 months after my mother’s death and about a month before my board examination, I started experiencing blurring of vision. I visited some ophthalmologists in my hometown and then in Chennai. Three surgeries later, they said that my retina could not be reattached, and I had completely lost my eyesight.”
Although Bhateja lost her eyesight completely just 15 days before her 10th class board exams, she still took the tests and secured a 10 GPA. And while she was initially confident that her good grades would land her at any of the good schools in the city, she was refused admission by her own school.
“They said that we are a normal school and you are not a normal child. Finally, one of the schools in Bathinda—St. Xavier’s—allowed me to pursue humanities because, in India, at least at that point, we did not have enough infrastructure to accommodate a blind person wanting to pursue medicine,” Bhateja said.
Since medicine was no longer an option, Bhateja thought that maybe law could be another way to bring about social transformation, and landed up at NLS Bangalore, the country’s top national law school.
In terms of academics, Bhateja struggled initially because of the inaccessibility of certain courses and people’s attitudes there. “There wasn’t a lack of intentionality to accommodate but certainly a lack of awareness. When I went there, they had no idea about screen reader software, scanning of documents, or OCR, which is a technology that converts text from images into machine-readable text.
However, with time, they got better at accommodating me, and I got better at dealing with a lack of accessibility.”
Echoing a similar sentiment, AOR Sanchita Ain, who grew up in Calcutta, told ThePrint that she had originally aspired to become a doctor and excelled academically. However, once symptoms of dystonia, a neurological disorder, began to emerge in her daily life, her school forced her to switch streams before she could complete her senior secondary education.
“By then, I had no idea where I would be or what I would be doing because, in the middle of the session, they made me quit science and shifted me to the humanities stream. They didn’t give me a choice. I told them they could test me, but they refused, saying they didn’t want to take the risk of ruining their board records,” Ain said.
A mission beyond their existence
Born and raised in Nagpur, lawyer Rahul Bajaj said he was always drawn to social sciences and humanities, which is why law seemed like the logical next step in his career and led him to enrol at Nagpur University.
Bajaj was always drawn to the world of historical fiction and kept himself busy with news, sports, and meditation. “I also enjoy reading autobiographies and memoirs immensely, such as the memoir of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson—the first Black woman to serve as a SCOTUS judge.”
Bajaj, who was born blind due to Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis, a rare retinal condition, went on to pursue his master’s in law at the University of Oxford in 2020, after securing the prestigious Rhodes scholarship. He also served as a judicial clerk to former Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, who set up the Supreme Court Committee on Accessibility last year.
The committee was chaired by former Supreme Court judge Ravindra Bhat and was assisted by the efforts of Bajaj, who then went on to establish Mission Accessibility, alongside lawyer Amar Jain.
“As a person with a disability, one also has to deal with several structural obstacles when exercising one’s rights. So, self-advocacy is something one has to learn at an early age, and once you master that, you naturally develop the skill set to advocate for others, which is how law became the career path I chose,” Bajaj told ThePrint.
Today, Bajaj leads Mission Accessibility alongside co-founder Amar Jain, a former corporate lawyer who worked with top-tier law firms such as Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas and Trilegal. After completing his law degree from Government Law College, Mumbai, Jain spent nearly 9 years in the corporate law sector before deciding to establish his own organisation.
“The idea of Mission Accessibility, however, came to us for a very different reason. One day, when Rahul, I, and another friend were talking, he pointed out that we were exerting our energies individually, reaching out to service providers about what they should do and how they could make their apps and websites accessible. So, he suggested—why not join forces and do it together?”
The initiative began with a few law school volunteers who would send out emails, follow up with service providers, or issue legal notices when they received no response. “Soon, we started getting positive responses. Within a year, about 500 people had joined us, which made us realise we needed to institutionalise this effort and create a structured system that could function beyond just the two of us,” Jain explained, describing how Mission Accessibility took shape.
Jain added that he still dreams of becoming a mainstream lawyer. “From a professional perspective, my aspiration is to be seen as a mainstream lawyer, not just a disability rights lawyer, but someone who can add value to the industry and society at large.”
Inclusion in the corporate world or ‘mere tokenism’?
Reflecting on his time in corporate law firms, Jain said that while partners were receptive and willing to understand the challenges, certain fundamental issues remained. “One major gap I noticed was that timesheets, document management systems, and other critical infrastructure were mostly inaccessible.”
Back then, awareness of assistive technology was low, he said, adding that there were no legal requirements compelling firms to procure accessible solutions such as Citrix.
The second challenge from an employee perspective was the lack of reasonable accommodations, Jain said, pointing out that these could range from allowing extra time to providing human assistance.
“For instance, when we received documents or files—most of which were handwritten or poorly scanned—our software couldn’t read them. We needed human assistance to process and understand them. However, this didn’t make financial sense to law firms, as it meant paying for two resources instead of one.”
Although Jain was willing to contribute part of his salary to cover the cost of human assistance, this was not provided. Another major hurdle was that the data provided by clients was often inaccessible.
“For me to read it, I had to print out the entire dataset, re-scan it, and then convert it into readable text. A significant portion of my labour was spent just making inaccessible material accessible before I could even begin working on it,” he said.
Anchal, who also worked at a leading law firm in Delhi, said most corporate environments lacked an understanding of the nuances of workplace accommodation.
“In many places, inclusion is treated as a tokenistic exercise. While firms formally offer accommodations and widely publicise these efforts in newspapers and on their websites, real inclusion—such as entrusting persons with disabilities to handle high-stakes matters and lead transactions independently—is often missing,” Bhateja said.
The cost of workplace accommodation is not as high as many assume, Anchal added, citing a study conducted by the Job Accommodation Network (JAN), a body funded by the US Department of Labour’s Office of Disability Employment Policy. The study, she said, found that the financial burden on employers is minimal in most cases.
Is litigation any better?
Sanchita Ain has been practising as a lawyer in the Supreme Court and various high courts across the country for the past 11 years. She is also an Advocate-on-Record, a special category of lawyers authorised to file cases before the apex court.
Ain began her legal career in 2014 at the office of Senior Advocate Shadan Farasat, before moving the following year to work under Senior Advocate and former law minister Salman Khurshid. Acknowledging the support and mentorship she received from her seniors, Ain said, “Sometimes, the fact that Farasat would simply glance over to check if I was okay while we were in court, or arrange for a recliner so I wouldn’t fall, were small gestures that made a huge difference in encouraging me.”
However, not all colleagues were equally accommodating.
“Exclusion can have a profound impact on people. What makes it particularly challenging in the workplace is the absence of stringent policies. If there isn’t a zero-tolerance stance against exclusionary behaviour, such issues will persist. Many colleagues see you as competition and deliberately try to instil an inferiority complex, ultimately forcing you out of the profession,” she said.
The way forward
Justice Rajiv Shakdher, former Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court, and who headed the Delhi High Court’s Accessibility Committee, told ThePrint that it is of utmost importance to provide more “meaningful work opportunities” to differently-abled lawyers.
“This can be done by putting them on pro bono panels, employing them in PSUs, or involving them in advisory positions. I had also triggered a procedure where we had certain slots reserved for disabled persons and paid them at par with everybody else. They are as good, if not better, than other lawyers,” he said.
Simple things like arranging the cause list in an accessible manner, providing screen readers and sign-language interpreters, giving them documents in readable form that are OCR-compliant, and sensitising lawyers and judges along with court staff can go a long way for both differently-abled lawyers and litigants, he added.
From an organisational perspective, the way forward can be created by ensuring universal accessibility, said Amar Jain. “Co-create with people with disabilities. Involve them in your designs, discussions, and boardroom conversations.”
Good intentions do not suffice unless backed by appropriate funding and action, he said.
“There is now an appetite for people with disabilities to be inculcated into the systems, into jobs, but still, it’s at an entry level and a mid-level,” Jain added.
“However, I still do not see this inclusion progress over the years, like it happened with gender. Initially, people weren’t able to appreciate how gender diversity could be included in our environments, but today we have one woman on every listed company’s board. That kind of representation is still lacking for those with disabilities.”
Similarly, there are fixed seats for women in elections and in Parliament, Jain said, while adding that people with disabilities still do not have that kind of representation today
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)