2 min readApr 24, 2013 01:39 AM IST
First published on: Apr 24, 2013 at 01:39 AM IST
The Delhi Health department has constituted a three-member medical board under a professor of psychiatry from AIIMS to look into the mental fitness of death row convict Devinderpal Singh Bhullar. Sources said the board does not include any member from the Institute for Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS),where Bhullar is admitted since December 2010.
Health department sources confirmed that the board,headed by Dr S K Khandelwal from AIIMS,includes one psychiatrist each from Maulana Azad Medical College and GB Pant Hospital.
Sources said the order,issued by Delhi government,does not specify any date by which time Bhullar’s examination should be completed or the number of times the members can examine him.
A senior government official said: “While no formal deadline has been communicated in the order,we expect the procedure of examination to be completed within two to three weeks.
We have to give the doctors time to fully examine the patient before reaching a decision on his mental fitness.”
IHBAS,even in its last report to the jail sent on March 2,maintained that Bhullar has been diagnosed as “severe depressive with psychotic symptoms”,and is “not showing any improvement and in the recent past has shown worsening in psychiatric condition”.
Jail sources had questioned Bhullar’s prolonged admission in the hospital.
In their formal request (accessed by Newsline) for a medical board,after SC rejected Bhullar’s mercy plea on April 12,the jail had requested that the board include members from “different hospitals”.
The letter signed by Tihar’s Deputy Inspector General of Prisons to the Principal Secretary of the Home department stated: “It would be in the fitness of things if the matter is taken up with the Health department for constituting a medical board comprising doctors/specialists from different hospitals of Delhi government to give a report about the status of his (Bhullar’s) mental illness so that further action can be taken as per the provisions of Delhi Jail Manual.”
In a response to the Delhi government,IHBAS said an “independent and and external medical board may be the most appropriate and desirable option”.
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