Allahabad High Court directs State to ensure disabled persons have access to lifts, gym in residential buildings

The Allahabad High Court recently directed the authorities in Uttar Pradesh to ensure that proper parking spaces with clear access to common facilities like lift, pavement, playgrounds, community centres and gym are made for persons with disability in residential complexes [Scc Builders Pvt. Ltd. v State of UP and 4 Others].A Division Bench of Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Siddharth Nandan said the government must ensure mandatory observance of the Accessibility Rules at the stage of granting permission to build any structure and before issuance of certificate of completion. “The Development Authorities in the State of Uttar Pradesh to incorporate necessary guidelines, which may be necessary to ensure that persons with disability are not put to a inequitable position and the maps which is being sanctioned for such community living, it may be necessary that proper parking spaces may be made for persons with disability, from where there is a clear access to a common facility like lift; and also provisions for convenience of "persons with disabilities" to have access to other common facilities like pavement, playgrounds, community centres, gymnasium etc,” the Court said..The Court was hearing a construction company’s plea challenging an order passed against it under the provisions of Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, in connection with the parking space of an allottee at SCC Sapphire, a residential project in Ghaziabad. The allottee, who is 90 percent disabled, had approached the Ghaziabad Development Authority with a complaint alleging that eight years after she purchased a flat, her parking was divided by the builder. The State Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities held the complaint to be correct and found that the act of the builder was causing a hindrance to the complainant in accessing the lift. The builder challenged the findings, stating that the proceedings were ex parte. However, the Court found that a representative of the petitioner-company was present in the proceedings. The Court also found that the parking was divided without the consent of the original allottee. Thus, it declined to interfere with the findings. .The Court noted that the right to accessibility is now a fundamental right and has been held to be broad enough to incorporate the demands of 'community living’ where there are common facilities like lift, pavements, playgrounds, community centres and gymnasium etc.“We have no hesitation in holding that the 'Right to Accessibility' cannot be confined only in public places but as a fundamental right, it is also to be extended to a structure or building which is being utilized as "community living"; and as such right to accessibility which is a fundamental right, has to be adhered to in residential buildings, which caters to the requirement of providing a shelter with common facilities like lift, pavement, playgrounds, community centres, gymnasium etc. It is a fundamental right of a PWD to have right to accessibility, for facilities which are common in a building or structure, which is providing a shelter to an incumbent,” the Court said..Advocates Devendra Singh and Pravindra Singh represented the petitioner.Advocate Tejasvi Misra appeared for the Ghaziabad Development Authority.[Read Judgment]