When One Film Crossed a Line, This Man Sparked an SC Ruling on How India Shows Disability

The trailer plays like light entertainment. A father with fixation amnesia stumbles through conversations. A daughter with night blindness tries to navigate everyday moments. Other family members appear with hearing loss or stammering speech. Each characteristic becomes the centre of a punchline.

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Many people watched the trailer of Aankh Micholi and let the jokes pass. Nipun Malhotra did not. The laughter hit him in a way that felt familiar and tiring. It reduced disability to a spectacle. It ignored the lives behind such conditions and turned difference into an easy prop.

Nipun had seen this pattern repeat for years. Disabled characters often appeared on screen as burdens, as heroic exceptions, or as comic relief. This time, he felt something shift inside him. He chose to challenge it.

When the Supreme Court drew a line on harmful humour

In July 2024, the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict on his petition. What began as a response to one film grew into a judgment that now guides how disability is portrayed across the country.

The Court introduced a distinction that had never been articulated so clearly in Indian law. It separated humour that includes disability and treats it sensitively from humour that mocks or reduces a person’s identity to their condition. This second category, which the Court called ‘disabling humour’, was found to harm dignity and reinforce prejudice.

For Nipun, this clarity held power. “The important part of the legal outcome was that now there was a distinction,” he tells The Better India. “And that is something which will make people aware that they cannot get away by just saying whatever they want.”

The judgment also addressed how familiar words, long normalised in pop culture, have carried damaging meanings. A bench led by former Chief Justice DY Chandrachud noted that people with disabilities are full participants in society. Their challenges, strengths and everyday lives should not be reduced to jokes or exaggerated myths.

Film certification authorities now have a responsibility to check whether portrayals are abusive or needlessly stereotypical before approving a film. A few lines in a script can shape attitudes for years. The judgment acknowledges that and places respect at the centre of storytelling.

Why the decision matters to more than one film

A ruling in a courtroom often feels distant from daily life. Yet, this one reaches into homes, theatres and the quiet spaces where people decide what to laugh at, who to take seriously and whom to dismiss.

For many people with disabilities, the judgment feels like recognition after years of discomfort. It validates the idea that representation is not cosmetic. It influences how people relate to each other in classrooms, workplaces and public spaces.

For creators, it carries a gentle but firm invitation to rethink how stories are crafted. Characters deserve depth, not exaggeration. Dialogue deserves sensitivity, not habit. There is space for humour, but not for ridicule.

What shaped the person behind the petition

To understand why this judgment carries such meaning, it helps to step back into Nipun’s early life. He was born with arthrogryposis, a condition that affects limb development. His parents, especially his mother, built his childhood on insistence. They believed he belonged in mainstream classrooms, and they worked to ensure he studied in them.

Those years taught him what acceptance feels like and what barriers can look like. Later, when he graduated from St Stephen’s College and the Delhi School of Economics, he expected his academic merit to carry him forward. Instead, he faced the subtle, steady weight of exclusion during campus placements.

“They would say, ‘We don’t have a disabled-friendly toilet’ or ‘We can’t imagine you sitting on a wheelchair for eight hours a day’,” he recalls. “It wasn’t about lack of qualification, but lack of acceptance.”

He speaks of that phase with calm clarity. The experience shaped something in him. It taught him that inclusion is not automatic. It must be built, protected and reinforced. It also taught him that systems often overlook the dignity of people whose lives function outside familiar norms.

Those experiences formed the lens through which he began to view the world. They helped him recognise where systems fall short and where change can begin.

Turning understanding into action

In 2012, he co-founded ‘Nipman Foundation’. The organisation focuses on accessibility, rights and policy advocacy. He later created ‘Wheels for Life’, a platform that helps people secure wheelchairs through donations.

These efforts grew from a simple belief: dignity must not depend on pity, and access should not depend on chance. They were early steps in a journey that would eventually reach the Supreme Court.

Representation that grows from real understanding

Change in law often needs a change in culture to take root. Nipun speaks often about how films and television shape everyday attitudes.

He remembers watching Margarita with a Straw and the conversations it sparked. Director Shonali Bose spent considerable time with members of the disability community while developing the film. That investment created a story that felt honest and rooted in lived experience.

“If you are spending time with people with disabilities and understanding their challenges, the quality of the work would definitely be better than making assumptions,” he says.

He believes the future of representation lies not in correcting scripts after they are written, but in involving people with disabilities while stories are being conceived. It is an approach that turns consultation into collaboration.

A fuller vision of dignity

As Nipun reflects on the ruling, he speaks about portrayals that reduce people to symbols. He hopes to see stories that present people with disabilities as full individuals whose lives include ambition, humour, frustration, talent and ordinary moments.

“Instead of looking at them as objects of inspiration, looking at them as complete individuals with complete lives, that I think will change society in general,” he says.

His journey, from being turned away at job interviews to influencing how a nation portrays disability, is marked by steady insistence rather than triumph. The 2024 judgment is one significant milestone in that path. Its influence continues to grow as filmmakers, institutions, and audiences rethink the impact of representation.

As India moves forward, the ruling reminds us that the stories we share shape the respect we extend. When dignity enters the script, it enters everyday life as well.