Silence of the Indian Constitution on Persons with Disabilities: Legal and Social Implications

The Indian Constitution serves as the foundation for all rights and protections afforded to citizens, including those with disabilities. As it doesn’t explicitly mention disability as a protected category in its original text, the constitutional framework lacks explicit provisions through which the rights of persons with disabilities can be protected and promoted. In the Constitution the word disabled is used at a single instance i. e. Article 41 which says, “The State shall, within the limits of its economic capacity and development, make effective provision for securing the right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, and in other cases of undeserved want.”^[1]This constitutional silence has major legal and social implications, which have been dealt with in this research paper.

^[1] Article 41, Constitution of India