Odisha Frames Property and Inheritance Rights Guidelines for Persons with Disabilities | CLAT 2027

CURRENT AFFAIRS | 05 OCTOBER 2026

Odisha Moves to Shield the Property and Inheritance Rights of Persons with Disabilities

In August 2026 the Odisha government formulated a comprehensive set of guidelines to safeguard the property and inheritance rights of Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016. The guidelines seek to protect PwDs from discrimination in matters of ancestral, inherited and self-acquired property, filling a gap that activists say leaves disabled persons without the kind of safeguards the law already extends to other vulnerable groups.

What the guidelines propose

The key proposals direct the Revenue and Disaster Management Department to examine issuing instructions to all revenue authorities, and to maintain a register of complaints relating to PwD property rights at the tehsil and Sub-Collector levels, with periodic monitoring by the District Collector. The design is deliberately administrative: by routing complaints through the revenue machinery and holding the District Collector responsible for periodic review, the State seeks to make protection enforceable at the local level rather than leaving disabled persons to the slow course of civil litigation. Activists note that revenue laws already give safeguards to SC/ST communities — for example, prior permission is required before transferring their land to general-category persons — but PwDs lack any similar statutory protection against being dispossessed of ancestral, inherited or self-acquired property. The report profiles Balunkeswar Paikray, a 55-year-old visually impaired man from Khordha, Odisha, who has fought for 35 years for his share of ancestral property — a human illustration of why the gap matters.

The constitutional foundation

The rights of PwDs rest on several constitutional guarantees. Article 14 promises equality before the law and the equal protection of the laws, Article 15 prohibits discrimination, and Article 21 protects the right to life, which the courts have read to include the right to live with dignity. Among the Directive Principles of State Policy, Article 41 directs the State, within the limits of its economic capacity, to make effective provision for public assistance in cases of disablement. The subject ‘relief of the disabled’ falls under Entry 9 of the State List, which is precisely why a State such as Odisha has the competence to frame its own guidelines in this area rather than waiting for central action. Together, the RPwD Act — which itself gives effect to the UNCRPD that India ratified in 2007 — and these constitutional provisions form the legal backbone for the Odisha initiative.