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.
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Who’s covered
The rules will apply to any establishment that manufactures, designs, develops or makes available, directly or indirectly, a range of products to users in India, “whether such establishment is located within India or outside India”. This covers websites, mobile and tablet apps, other touch-based applications, software, all digital content and electronic documents, ICT-based public facilities and services, hardware with two-way voice or video capability, consumer products and accessories meant for persons with disabilities.
Firms will comply in phases based on turnover. Those with turnover of Rs 500 crore or more get a year from the date of publication; smaller firms get 18 months.
Everyone must comply in full within two years, in keeping with Section 46 of the Act. Turnover, the draft clarifies, is to be read across the group—the consolidated figure of the establishment and any entity under common control.
How it will be enforced
Each firm will have to publish an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR), free of cost, on its website or app — in two forms, one readable by people (HTML or accessible PDF) and one by machines (JSON or XML). Skipping either counts as non-compliance.
The report must be drawn up or verified by people with proven expertise in accessibility testing, whose credentials are to be disclosed, and refreshed after any major change and at least once every two years.
Enforcement will rest with the Chief Commissioner and State Commissioners for Persons with Disabilities, who can levy fines under Section 89 of the Act.
A firm that fails to fix a flagged lapse within 90 days of an order faces steeper fines and can lose its registration, certification or authorisation, with sectoral regulators free to add their own penalties. Government bodies face a separate restriction. They cannot buy, deploy, upgrade or renew any covered product unless it meets the standards, and must rework their procurement policies, tenders and contracts within 90 days.
The draft also sets up a grievance ladder: a Grievance Redressal Officer at every establishment, and Deputy and Chief Nodal Officers at each ministry or regulator, with complaints and appeals to be cleared in 30 and 45 days and the disability commissioners as the final stop.
A National Accessibility ICT Committee—at least half its members persons with disabilities—will oversee rollout, meet every quarter and report to the government once a year.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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