  This study aims to determine the impact of stellar binary companions on the
lifetime and evolution of circumstellar disks in the Chamaeleon I (Cha I)
star-forming region by measuring the frequency and strength of accretion and
circumstellar dust signatures around the individual components of T Tauri
binary stars. We used high-angular resolution adaptive optics JHKL'-band
photometry and 1.5-2.5mu spectroscopy of 19 visual binary and 7 triple stars in
Cha I - including one newly discovered tertiary component - with separations
between ~25 and ~1000au. The data allowed us to infer stellar component masses
and ages and, from the detection of near-infrared excess emission and the
strength of Brackett-gamma emission, the presence of ongoing accretion and hot
circumstellar dust of the individual stellar component of each binary. Of all
the stellar components in close binaries with separations of 25-100au,
10(+15-5)% show signs of accretion. This is less than half of the accretor
fraction found in wider binaries, which itself appears significantly reduced
(~44%) compared with previous measurements of single stars in Cha I. Hot dust
was found around 50(+30-15)% of the target components, a value that is
indistinguishable from that of Cha I single stars. Only the closest binaries
(<25au) were inferred to have a significantly reduced fraction (<~25%) of
components that harbor hot dust. Accretors were exclusively found in binary
systems with unequal component masses M_secondary/M_primary < 0.8, implying
that the detected accelerated disk dispersal is a function of mass-ratio. This
agrees with the finding that only one accreting secondary star was found, which
is also the weakest accretor in the sample. The results imply that disk
dispersal is more accelerated the stronger the dynamical disk truncation, i.e.,
the smaller the inferred radius of the disk. (abridged)
