In Deaf Employees Welfare Association v. Union of India, the Supreme Court ordered the government to grant travel allowances to deaf and mute employees at the same rate as is currently given to those with visual and locomotor impairments. While this appears as a relatively mundane decision, it implicates basic questions of distributive justice in a welfare state. Employing the term "distributive dilemma" to capture the often competing bases for distribution of state aid, the author examines the Court's approach to distribution of state resources in the context of disability law. He argues that though courts in India have decided such distributive questions in relation to the disabled in the past, Deaf Employees Welfare Association marks a departure from previous cases because the Court has, for the first time, approached the question using the constitutional principles of equality and dignity.