Overview
- A bench led by Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma issued notice to Zee Entertainment on Thursday and orally directed interim steps to make the ZEE5 platform accessible while the petition proceeds.
- The court explicitly instructed ZEE5 to comply with the Bureau of Indian Standards specification BIS IS 17802:2022 and asked the company to file a counter‑affidavit within two weeks.
- Petitioner Rahul Bajaj, who is 100 percent visually impaired, says ZEE5 is unusable with screen readers because of unlabelled buttons, wrongly labelled controls, unstable focus, an inaccessible media player and poor content discovery.
- The petition invokes Section 46 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 and a 2025 Supreme Court ruling that found digital access protects fundamental rights, and it seeks a government‑empanelled accessibility audit plus mandatory training for developers and support staff.
- The court listed the matter for further hearing on September 17, 2026, and the order could force faster fixes to streaming access ahead of ZEE5’s exclusive broadcast of the FIFA World Cup 2026, affecting how blind users can follow live coverage.