The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016

The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, was enacted to bring the law in India in line with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2006, to which India is a signatory. The act, which came into force on 28 December 2016, repeals the Persons With Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995.

The 2016 act has made advances in several areas, particularly with regard to including the private sector within the regulatory framework. Besides ensuring equality and non-discrimination, the act bestows on disabled people rights of protection and confers reproductive and voting rights. The act also provides for robust implementation by constituting central and state advisory boards and district-level committees and also trials by a special court.

The act categorizes persons with disabilities as: (a) “person with benchmark disability”; (b) “person with disability”; and (c) “person with disability having high support needs”. The appropriate government – defined as either the central or the state government – is mandated to protect persons with disabilities from “being subjected to torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” and from “all forms of abuse, violence and exploitation”.