Delhi High Court Issues Notice To ICICI Bank On Plea Alleging Lack Of Access To Digital Services For Persons With Disabilities
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued notice on a plea alleging lack of accessibility standards for persons with disabilities (PWDs) in ICICI's digital banking services.
Justice Vikas Mahajan sought response of ICICI Bank Limited, Union of India through Ministries of Finance and MeitY and Reserve Bank of India.
The plea has been filed by lawyer Anchal Bhatheja and businessman Rahul Jain. Both are persons with visual impairment.
The plea addresses the alleged inaccessibility of the digital banking services operated ICICI Bank, including but not limited to its iMobile application for personal banking, ICICI website and InstaBIZ corporate banking application.
It adds that the said platforms consistently fail to meet accessibility standards, thereby preventing Persons with Disabilities from independently performing basic and essential financial tasks such as logging in, viewing account statements, making payments, adding payees, managing beneficiaries, or completing transactions requiring two-factor authentication.
“Given that the ICICI banking ecosystem—and the banking sector at large—increasingly relies on digital interfaces as the primary mode of service delivery, the exclusion of persons with disabilities from these platforms effectively denies them equal access to critical financial infrastructure,” the plea states.
A direction is sought on the bank to conduct a detailed accessibility audit of all its digital platforms and to provide a long-term strategy to ensure that all future updates, modifications, and newly introduced features remain fully accessible and compliant with established accessibility standards.
A further direction is sought on the Centre and RBI to direct all the banking institutions to conduct accessibility audits of their digital platforms, take appropriate steps to remediate the identified accessibility issues.
Title: ANCHAL BHATHEJA AND ANR v. ICICI BANK LIMITED AND ORS