Zero FIR To Zero Access: Examining Whether Disabled Victims Can Meaningfully Navigate India's New Criminal Justice Framework Under BNSS 2023

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Anshika Mishra, B.A.LL.B. (Hons.), Galgotias University

ABSTRACT

The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), operative from July 1, 2024, codifies Zero FIR and introduces disability-specific procedural protections under Section 173. On paper, these represent a meaningful departure from the silence of the old Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. In practice, however, the question of whether persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, or psychosocial disabilities can meaningfully navigate India's reformed criminal justice architecture remains deeply troubled. Drawing on National Crime Records Bureau Crime in India 2023 data, the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 (RPwD Act), and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), this article argues that structural inaccessibility, an interpreter crisis, digital barriers in e-FIR design, and systemic attitudinal failures collectively render BNSS's disability provisions aspirational rather than operative. Genuine access to justice for disabled victims is not a matter of charity; it is a constitutional imperative rooted in Articles 14, 21, and 39A of the Constitution of India.

Keywords: BNSS 2023, Zero FIR, persons with disabilities, access to justice, RPwD Act 2016, e-FIR, UNCRPD, Section 173

168. ZERO FIR TO ZERO ACCESS- EXAMINING WHETHER DISABLED VICTIMS CAN MEANINGFULLY NAVIGATE

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