Bridging The Digital Divide: India's Evolving Accessibility Framework

On 30 April 2025, the Supreme Court of India ("SC"), in its landmark decision in Pragya Prasun & Ors. v. Union of India [2025 SCC OnLine SC 993] ("Pragya Prasun Case"), unequivocally affirmed that the right to digital access constitutes an intrinsic facet of the fundamental right to life and personal liberty enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution. By rooting digital accessibility in the constitutional guarantee of dignity and autonomy, the Court signalled a decisive shift towards a jurisprudence that adapts foundational principles to the realities of an increasingly digitised society, where access to essential services is largely mediated through technology.

Well before this pivotal judgment, India, in 2007, had embraced international commitments to disability rights by signing and ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ("UNCRPD"). The Convention imposes three crucial obligations on States parties: first, to respect