Priya Gour
Published on: August 28, 2022 at 17:46 IST
Private company Practo was recently directed by the Court of Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities to make its mobile app accessible for persons with disabilities or divyangjan.
Commissioner Upma Srivastava mentioned that under sections 40 and 46 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, the ICT companies have to make their services accessible to people with disabilities.
“From the combined reading of Section 40 and Section 46 it becomes clear that private establishments, which are providing information & technology services are bound to make their services and infrastructure accessible for divyangjan.”
A complaint was filed before the court by a visually challenged individual. Rahul Bajaj, against Practo Technologies Pvt. Ltd. He complained of the inaccessibility of the company’s website and app. He also submitted that the company did not comply with the standards specified by the rules.
The company offers doctor consultation services of thousands of hospitals and medicine delivery by a network of pharmacies.
The app had several issues to be accessed by the Persons with disabilities. Unorganized home screen, not accessible with a screen reading software, crash of the app; Unlabelled and inaccessible second page; results provided on different data points.
Thus, the app has no access for a visually impaired person, which is in violation of provisions of Section 46 of the RPwD Act.
The respondent-company denied the above allegations. It submitted that it is not bound by the guidelines that required establishments to provide services in compliance with accessibility rules. Also, in absence of government guidelines in this regard, the company has no idea on how to proceed further.
However, it submitted that it is willing to make its platform accessible for the special needs people. And so, it asked for a 9 month time frame for the same.
The Court cited Section 15 of the Act –
According to the RPwD Act, all information and communication technology services, including Practo, are obliged for accessible services for persons with disabilities.
“…RPwD Rules, 2017 do not define term ‘establishment’ separately. The term is defined in Section 2(i) of Rights of Persons with Disability Act, 2016. It is crystal clear from the reading of the section that private establishments are included in the definition of ‘establishment.”
Also, the court cited several government guidelines in this regard. The Director General of Health Services is responsible for matters relating to health services, and not the Ministry of Information & Technology.
The Court used its powers under Section 75 of RPwD Act, to take cognizance of the issue of non-accessibility.
Henceforth, the company was directed to make necessary changes within 9 months. Also, a hearing on 20th September shall be held to monitor the rightful execution of Sections 40 and 46 of RPwD Act, 2016 and Rule 15 of RPwD Rules.