Barriers in Accessing Legal Aid for Youth with Disabilities.

On August 17, 2025, Enable Education hosted a webinar titled “Barriers in Accessing Legal Aid for Youth with Disabilities.” The event, held virtually on Google Meet, featured Advocate Abhishek Kumar, a practicing lawyer, disability rights activist, and founder of the initiative The Sangyan. The conversation was moderated by Ms. Aarushi Gambhir, Founder of Enable Education and Disability Inclusion Strategist.

The conversation began with the introduction of Advocate Abhishek Kumar, who himself is a person with low vision. Since 2021, he has been working on the intersection of climate change and disability, exploring how environmental challenges disproportionately affect persons with disabilities (PWDs) and advocating for policy interventions. His work also spans concerns such as pollution, wildlife crimes, and broader environmental issues. Explaining the objectives of The Sangyan, Mr. Abhishek highlighted that the initiative focuses on inclusivity, sustainability, and the urgent need to make legal aid accessible. He emphasized that despite being a constitutional guarantee under the Directive Principles of State Policy and later made mandatory, free legal aid remains largely inaccessible in India. Legal aid is intended as a tool to ensure justice and uphold the rule of law, yet many barriers prevent it from reaching those who need it most.

Among the major reasons for this inaccessibility, he pointed to linguistic barriers, the persistence of colonial-era legal systems, and the lack of digital accessibility for court-related work. He referred to constitutional provisions, including Article 39A, Article 40, and Articles 14, 21, and 22, which collectively underscore the right to free legal aid. Despite these legal safeguards, persons with disabilities continue to face layered challenges.

The obstacles are both structural and social. Courts and prisons often remain physically inaccessible, interpreters and scribes are rarely available for legal procedures, and sign language interpreters are almost non-existent. Digital inaccessibility further compounds the problem, while attitudinal barriers among legal professionals add to the exclusion. As Mr. Abhishek noted, PWDs often end up as secondary victims of a system that fails to accommodate them.

He further explained that India’s legal system lacks sensitization at multiple levels. Since legal matters fall under the concurrent list, both state and central governments share responsibility, yet coordination often leads to inaction. Training systems for police personnel and even teachers are insufficient, turning legal accessibility into a broader socio-political issue.

The barriers, he noted, are not uniform across all persons with disabilities. They differ based on the type and degree of disability, gender, age, and whether the disability is progressive, regressive, or constant. These variations directly influence the kind of solutions and accommodations required. Procedural aspects such as delays in hearings, multiple adjournments, and long waits in courtrooms further deter PWDs from pursuing justice.

To address these challenges, Mr. Abhishek suggested measures such as ensuring universal accessibility, providing reasonable accommodation, building inclusive infrastructure, and collecting reliable data on PWDs to strengthen advocacy at all levels. He also emphasized the need to sensitize legal professionals and increase the representation of persons with disabilities within the legal fraternity, which could serve as a powerful example for systemic change.

He concluded by underlining the crucial role of PWD representatives in identifying needs, mobilizing resources, and fostering greater awareness within society. Immediate attention, he stressed, must be directed towards improving both physical and digital accessibility. The session ended with Ms. Gambhir extending heartfelt thanks to the speaker, attendees, and partners for their valuable contributions. The webinar not only shed light on the systemic barriers faced by youth with disabilities in accessing legal aid but also deepened understanding of the urgent reforms needed to build an inclusive and equitable justice system.