Court: Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, India
Presided by: Ms. Upma Srivastava, Commissioner
Case No.: 13205/1102/2022
Case Title: Rahul Bajaj Vs. Practo Technologies Pvt. Ltd. [PTPL] & Others.
Date of Order: 24 August 2022
Next Date of Hearing cum Compliance: 20 September 2022
Subject: Inaccessibility of Website, Mobile and Tablet and non-compliance with the standards of accessibility as prescribed under rules.
Brief:
The Court of Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities in this important order stressed that the private establishments are also bound by the provisions of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD Act) 2016.
The Court of CCPD was hearing a complaint filed by a lawyer with 100% visual impairment, Rahul Bajaj, on March 22, 2022 regarding the website and app being inaccessible and not in compliance with accessibility standards. The complainant had submitted that the home screen of the app was unorganised and inaccessible with screen reading software, some buttons were not labelled and others had “nonsensical labels” like “tertiary half one image label”. Complainant also said Practo was not in compliance with Section 46 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (PwD) Act, 2016, which sets a two-year timeline for service providers “whether government or private” to provide services in accordance with Central government accessibility rules.
The CCPD Court ordered Practo, the online healthcare service provider, to make its website and app fully accessible for the disabled, affirming that legal requirements and guidelines on accessibility applied to private companies and establishments as well.
The Court recommmended that Respondent No. 1, i.e. Practo Technologies Pvt. Ltd. shall comply with the government guidelines and shall make necessary modifications within 6 months and not later than 9 months from receiving the copy of this Recommendation Order, to its app and other Information & Communication Technology platforms to make such platforms accessible for divyangjan.
Practo Practo in its reply had denied the allegations and submitted that it was not bound by the guidelines that require establishments to provide accessible services, however, it expressed willingness to make its platform accessible for persons with disabilities and sought nine months to make the changes as it involved “severe engineering efforts”.
Referring to Section 46, the court said: “Mere reading of this Section leaves no doubt that the provision is applicable on private establishments as well.” The court also said that Rule 15 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Rules, 2017 made standards for physical environment, transport and ICT mandatory for every establishment.
Court of CCPD also recommended that the Director-General of Health Services under the Health Ministry should ensure that Practo was accessible for Persons with Disabilities being the domain regulator under the law.
The court has fixed the next hearing for compliance and to monitor the implementation of the statutes related to accessibility as 20 Sep 2022, considering the wider social aspect of the issue of accessibility.
Read the order embedded below: